Ferrari Purosangue 2023 Review

In the high-performance luxury SUV space, the 2023 Ferrari Purosangue is right at the summit when it comes to entry pricing, but its whopping $728,000 (+ORCs) starting price doesn’t seem to be turning buyers away.

In fact, the Italian car-maker even had to pause orders due to unprecedented demand (they’re back open at the time of writing) and wait times now push out to three years.

It’s a hefty price to pay when you look at the Purosangue’s competition, all of which is much, much more affordable. The Aston Martin DBX707 starts from $428,000 (+ORCs, while the Lamborghini Urus Performante is $465,876 (+ORCs), and Porsche’s Cayenne Turbo GT is only $364,700 (+ORCs).

Even the hyper-luxury Bentley Bentayga Speed is a relative bargain at $531,500.

So, the Ferrari Purosangue sits in supercar – neigh, hypercar – territory in terms of pricing, and that’s before you even browse the options menu.

The 2023 Ferrari Purosangue comes with plenty of equipment, but whether it’s enough to justify its eye-watering price tag will depend on one’s expectations.

Standard equipment includes staggered 22-inch front and 23-inch rear wheels wrapped in grippy Michelin Pilot Sport 4 S rubber (255/35 front; 315/30 rear), LED headlights and daytime running lights, a pair of 10.2-inch digital displays, and a lightweight carbon-fibre roof (you can option an electrochromic glass roof) that’s said to be 20 per cent lighter than steel and a lot more rigid.

An advanced climate control system, electric tailgate and soft-close electric rear ‘welcome’ (rear-hinged) doors, also come standard.

Exact pricing will vary wildly for each owner depending on how deeply they delve into Ferrari’s almost limitless options list, but you’ll be approaching $900K on-road with even the lightest of spends and many examples will stretch well beyond $1 million.

That’s because all four seats on our tester offered electric adjustment, along with massage, heating and ventilation, and loads of electric adjustment in the side and bottom bolstering of the driver’s seat, handy for holding smaller folk in place.

Even with a range of recycled materials inside the cabin, the Purosangue feels supremely well-appointed, with supple leather and suede finishes. In the rear seat of our tester, durable military-grade plastics are used on lower sections of trim and on the back of the front seats.

Free scheduled services are included for seven years and the Purosangue is covered by Ferrari’s three-year/unlimited-kilometre warranty, but there are a number of options to extend your warranty period (and coverage) depending on how deep your pockets are.

Hand-built machines like the 2023 Ferrari Purosangue are much too valuable to be crash-tested, so there’s no official ANCAP rating for this Prancing Horse.

Aids to help you avoid incidents in the first place include autonomous emergency braking (AEB), lane departure warning, adaptive cruise control, rear cross traffic alert, speed sign recognition, driver attention monitoring and a 360-degree camera with parking sensors at either end.

Meanwhile, the cabin is fitted with 10 airbags.

Wet and Ice drive modes are available alongside Comfort and Sport options, and Ferrari says its latest-gen ABSevo anti-lock braking system has been improved for low-grip conditions.

Its space-frame chassis is also built from lightweight – but very strong – aerospace materials and high-strength steel, while the bonnet is constructed of aluminium.

A truckload.

The 2023 Ferrari Purosangue sports plenty of fancy tech inside the cabin, but also a tonne that you don’t see and that’s the stuff that makes the Purosangue so special.

Bluetooth, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto come standard, but there’s no in-built navigation for Purosangue, because Ferrari says most owners will rely on smartphone maps.

A high-tech 21-speaker Burmester surround sound system is standard and claimed to play ‘everything’ (any genre) to perfection. From our experience, it’s pretty sharp.

Now for the technology you can’t see.

Although it’s an all-paw machine, courtesy of Ferrari’s 4RM-S Evo all-wheel drive system, the Purosangue sends power to the rear wheels for the most part, until you call for more power and the power transfer unit (PTU) kicks in to provide more traction. It’s a system borrowed from the GTC4 Lusso.

The Ferrari Purosangue also gets rear-wheel steering, but not in the traditional sense, because, unlike other RWS systems, it uses clever software that enables it to steer an individual rear wheel, rather than both at the same time.

According to the Italian car-maker, it improves dynamics as well as tyre wear.

Purosangue also debuts a new active suspension system that employs Multimatic True Active Spool Valve (TASV) tech, with 48-volt electric actuators and spool-valve hydraulic dampers with coil springs at all four corners.

Put simply, it’s a set-up that’s sharper and more responsive than air suspension, designed to reduce roll and pitch during heavy cornering and braking.

The beating heart of the 2023 Ferrari Purosangue is a naturally-aspirated 6.5-litre V12 petrol engine, mounted up front, but behind the front axle.

That makes it a front/mid-engine sports car, said to deliver a near-perfect weight distribution of 49:51 front-to-rear.

Paired exclusively to an eight-speed dual-clutch automatic shared with the 296 GTB, peak outputs are 533kW of power at 7250rpm and 716Nm of torque at 6250rpm.

Combine this with the on-demand all-wheel drive system and Ferrari says you can launch the Purosangue from 0-100km/h in 3.3 seconds.

That makes it as quick to reach triple figures as its Lamborghini and Aston Martin rivals, but the headline claim that the Purosangue can reach a top speed somewhere north of 310km/h is what makes it one of the world’s fastest production SUVs.

If you thought the 2023 Ferrari Purosangue was going to be the vehicle to launch the Italian manufacturer into a world of fuel efficiency, think again.

Even despite hundreds of hours of wind tunnel testing and aerodynamic advancements, the Purosangue was not designed to be an emissions warrior.

As such, Ferrari says its first-ever four-door will use 17.3 litres per 100km on a combined cycle (WLTP), but expect that figure to be much higher in real-world use, particularly when driven as intended.

In a word, terrifying. But it doesn’t take long before the sheer terror of piloting a circa-$1m machine is overtaken by the 2023 Ferrari Purosangue’s ability to consume you entirely.

Ferrari says the Purosangue is the quietest car it has ever built, and when you cautiously move off for the first time, you’d hardly believe there’s a V12 under its sweeping, rear-hinged bonnet.

But it only takes a more meaningful tap of the throttle for an entirely different beast to emerge, even tootling around in ‘Comfort’ mode.

Start to push it harder and its 6.5-litre V12 screams a uniquely distinctive orchestra – which sounds incredible from outside the car, but rather hushed from inside the cabin – and what was initially a composed, four-seat family hauler switches to a brutally fast hyper-SUV in seconds.

Not only is the Purosangue dazzlingly quick, it’s supremely comfortable and capable. Levelling out lumps and bumps with ease, even a larger hit over a particularly nasty pothole was heard inside the cabin, but hardly felt.

On more challenging roads, engaging Sport mode and switching the adaptive dampers to ‘Hard’ brings obscene levels of control. Body roll who?

The breadth of suspension settings on the Manettino gives the driver plenty of options, from Comfort with Soft, Medium, or Hard damper settings to Sport (Medium or Hard), as well as Ice and Wet ESC modes.

Particularly striking is how surprisingly user-friendly it is once you’ve wrapped your head around the fact that most of the key controls (lighting, indicators, wipers) are all positioned on the steering wheel.

It feels like just about anyone could get behind the wheel and the Purosangue could meet them at their level of talent.

Tipping the scales at 2180kg and measuring 4973mm long, 2028mm wide and 1589mm tall, the Purosangue is big. For perspective, it’s a touch shorter in length than the mid-size Hyundai Santa Fe but roughly 50mm wider than a Hyundai Palisade large SUV.

Behind the wheel, it feels like a large vehicle, and the left-hand drive nature of our tester (shipped over direct from Modena) made New Zealand highway lanes feel tiny.

If you’re built on the smaller side, it’ll be even more tricky to see out your blind spots and chunky C-pillars and that curved rear window doesn’t make it easier.

Even still, vision is better here than in a proper low-slung supercar, and you learn to lean on the Purosangue’s blind spot monitoring system a little more.

Sure, you could take the high-riding 2023 Ferrari Purosangue off-road, but it’s not designed to cart you much further than the cobblestone driveway that leads up to your luxury accommodation.

Ferrari’s big four-door is every bit as luxurious and athletic as you’d expect on the inside.

The smell of supple leather hits you as soon as you step inside the 2023 Ferrari Purosangue and the attention to detail is next-level.

Just like the 296 GTB, it’s a driver-focused cockpit, but in a way, the lack of a central touch-screen and that dash-mounted rotary dial can make it more distracting.

It’s certainly something to get used to and, naturally, becomes easy to the longer you spend behind the wheel.

Likewise, the steering wheel is another beast entirely, but thankfully, it’s a little more user-friendly, making it easy to toggle through the driver’s 10.2-inch instrument cluster once you understand what all the buttons and controls do.

It’s safe to say Ferrari succeeded in its mission to deliver "an extremely roomy interior" because the rear pews are genuinely spacious enough to spend extended periods of time, with great legroom and decent headroom.

Electric adjustments allow you to recline the backrest on each individual rear seat and there’s yet another dial to control the rear climate and seat heating/ventilation. A lidded arm rest lifts to reveal a second wireless phone charging pad and a pair of USB-C ports.

There’s a 473-litre boot that’ll swallow a large suitcase along with two carry-on suitcases, but only after removing the padded rear parcel shelf, which conveniently tucks neatly under a flap in the boot floor.

An arguably insignificant part of the ownership experience is the key fob, and Ferrari nails it. The colourful metal casing could be easily mistaken for a novelty cigarette lighter at first (not in a bad way) but turn it over and you find a lovely leather face, neatly stitched along the edges.

A bit of useless trivia for you: the eye-catching key fob doesn’t pull apart and contain a manual key as most cars normally do to provide access to the car if the battery in your key fob dies. Ferrari gives you a manual key separately.

You know that phrase, just because you can, doesn’t mean you should?

The 2023 Ferrari Purosangue is exactly that. It’s pure hedonism. Nobody needs a supercar-slaying SUV in the vicinity of $1 million.

But its incredible versatility lends the Purosangue a competitive edge when it comes to high-performance luxury vehicles. You don’t have to sacrifice space for speed – here, you get both (and more).

It feels exactly like what you’d expect a high-riding supercar to feel like: astonishingly agile, incredibly powerful and unbelievably enjoyable to drive.

Nobody needs a Ferrari Purosangue in their life. But it’s pretty easy to see why so many want one.

2023 Ferrari Purosangue at a glance:
Price: $728,000 (plus on-road costs)
Available: December 2023 (first batch)
Engine: 6.5-litre V12 petrol
Output: 533kW/716Nm
Transmission: Eight-speed dual-clutch automatic
Fuel: 17.3L/100km (WLTP)
CO2: 393g/km (WLTP)
Safety rating: Not tested