New cheaper Ferrari to challenge the Brits

Ferrari’s GTC4Lusso lands Down Under in February 2017 with $46,000 clipped from its price over the FF it replaces. Enough to entice owners of other brands to drop their keys in the bowl and grab those for the new Ferrari four-seater, says local brand boss, Herbert Appleroth.

“There’s been a lot of carry-over with existing Ferrari owners with FF, but I think with this car the detailing of the interior, the whole luxury sport concept, will get a lot more people moving across from other brands,” said Appleroth at the GTC4Lusso reveal in Sydney this week.

Appleroth all but named the brands, saying that competitors for the GTC4Lusso would, “Probably be something British”.

“If you look at the numbers in V12, W12, who manufacture, they’re mainly British, front-engined. I think that’s where most of our conquest clients will come from. This is something revolutionary. They’re looking for something new, and we think that this is the car,” Appleroth told motoring.com.au.

This puts the W12 Bentley Continental ($431,300) and V12 Rolls-Royce Wraith ($645,000) directly in Ferrari’s crosshairs with its GTC4Lusso, priced at $578,888 (all prices plus on-road costs).

While Appleroth said that GTC4Lusso sales increase over FF would be ‘incremental’, he also said that interest from potential buyers in a new V12 Ferrari doesn’t usually hit so hard so quickly.

“We don’t see this kind of interest in V12 from the beginning, and we realised that, ‘wow this is becoming something hot’.

“There’s heat in the market for sport luxury, this is four-wheel drive, four-wheel steer. There’s nothing like it in the market that looks like it — and, of course, it performs like a Ferrari.”

The GTC4Lusso’s $46,000 price drop continues a trend Ferrari began not long after it took over local distribution from Ateco in April 2013.

At the time, Appleroth said that prices would not change, citing currency fluctuations requiring a buffer on prices and that Australian and New Zealand-market Ferraris were “the highest specified in the world”.

This stance has changed since, and while Appleroth would not directly acknowledge that Ateco’s prices were set too high, he said: “The price differentiation is in line with our overall repricing strategy first started with the 458 Speciale, California T, the 488GTB and 488 Spider”.

Appleroth also said that Ferrari was not satisfied with the way Ateco handled the FF launch in 2011.

”I don’t think it was launched here properly. I don’t think people understood it, the amazing technology that we created in that car, our own 4WD system,” he said.

The GTC4Lusso, first shown at Geneva just two months ago is effectively a heavily face-lifted FF. It carries over the 6.3-litre V12 but power and torque have been boosted from 486kW/683Nm to 507kW/697Nm. It uses the same seven-speed dual-clutch transmission as the FF.

An improved version of the FF’s 4RM all-wheel drive system, now called 4RM-S, underpins the new model. It now incorporates four-wheel steering — the first Ferrari to do so. Like Porsche’s current system, the rear wheels are able to turn with the front wheels (at higher speeds) or against them (at low speeds).

Inside, the GTC4Lusso features a new steering wheel (with more compact airbag) that will roll out to other upcoming Ferrari models. Also new for the brand is the GTC4Lusso’s 10.25in high-definition infotainment screen.