New 2024 Ferrari hypercar hits the road: V12 swapped for smaller hybrid engine
Ferrari’s next flagship will be the first without a V12 engine for more than three decades, and it’s been spotted in pre-production form
As Ferrari enters the era of electrification, development of the firm’s next flagship hypercar is in full swing - as revealed by a newly released video of the car testing on public roads. With a bloodline that includes the legendary F40, Enzo and most recently the LaFerrari, the new model will ditch V12 power in favour of a smaller hybrid engine.
At a Capital Markets Day presentation last year, Ferrari confirmed that its forthcoming hybrid offerings will be fitted with either V6 or V8 combustion engines, with V12 models being sold exclusively in pure ICE form.
Given that Ferrari’s halo supercar will serve as a reference point for the brand's future - which is shifting towards electrification - it’s almost certain to be a hybrid of some sort, as indicated by the electricity warning sticker on the nose of this test mule.
Moreover, the presentation hinted that the newcomer would arrive with “technology transferred from Formula 1 and Le Mans Hypercar”, both of which use hybrid V6 powertrains. Speaking to Auto Express in 2019, Ferrari’s chief marketing officer Enrico Galliera made a case for more compact solutions like this: “To be honest, electrifying a V12 means creating a very, probably heavy and big car. So electrification ideally should be coupled with smaller engines.”
Less certain is whether Ferrari's new flagship will arrive with a V6 or a V8. The firm's 4.0-litre twin-turbocharged V8 would be a worthy candidate to achieve hypercar-level performance with hybrid assistance, as demonstrated by the 986bhp SF90 Stradale. However, the test mule in this video burbles by with a similar tune to the 819bhp 296 GTB, which is powered by a 3.0-litre twin-turbo V6.
A V6 would fit with the company's motorsport efforts, and given that the 296 uses a single rear electric motor to boost performance, the new hypercar could - like the SF90 - employ a pair of e-motors on the front axle to push power beyond 1,000bhp. This would also make it the brand's first-ever four-wheel-drive hypercar.
The final design will undoubtedly be more refined than this rudimentary development car - not least because Ferrari typically uses active aero elements rather than the large splitters and wings bolted to this prototype. Expect the production version to break cover within the next two years.
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