Ferrari 550 Maranello: V12 Perfection | Catchpole on Carfection

Having looked at the Ferrari 365 GTB/4 (otherwise known as the Daytona) in the first film (see it here ) , this time it’s the turn of the 550 Maranello. Once again, it was sourced by Bell Sport & Classic and seeing the two cars parked up outside their showroom I was surprised that the 550 didn’t look vastly bigger than the Daytona given the decades between them. To my eyes it’s not as attractive as the earlier front-engined, V12 supercar, but as soon as you get into the Maranello it is obvious how much things moved on between 1973 and 1996. The whole interior is vastly better laid out and the car feels smaller and more intimate as a result. Get going and the 550 immediately feels possessed of a totally different level of performance, too - right up there with more modern machinery, in fact. It might have ‘only’ 478bhp and 420lb ft of torque (131bhp and 102lb ft up on the Daytona but 134bhp and 141lb ft down on the current junior Ferrari, the Roma) but the 550