There are people out there who will hate the Ferrari GTC4Lusso. Can you believe that? These people are fanatics of the worst kind, loathsome lackeys who bow at the altar of mid-engine two-seaters and scorn all others. It's a sad life, one devoid of beauty, and of backseats. When Ferrari unveiled the GTC4Lusso's predecessor, the exquisite FF, in 2012, Ferrari fanatics leaned away in disgust as though it was a festering rind of casu marzu. The GTC4Lusso is Ferrari's brand new shooting brake, a two-door four-seater that emerges from a factory line in Maranello that has produced some of the most valuable and objectively beautiful grand touring chassis ever made, starting with the 250 GT in 1960. Since then, we rabble have been given the gift of the the 550 Maranello, the 365GTB4, the incomparable Ferrari 456—the list is long.

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Because I’m a self-imploding contrarian, I’m tempted to say what I find most beautiful about the dynamic, $300,000, V12 powered GTC4Lusso is that the fanatics—those overly-perfumed, eyebrow-plucking peacocks who tend to have tiny feet—will dislike it immensely. All wheel drive? Get outta here. Back seats? Engine in the front? Afanabola, you pazzo son of a bitch.

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But in the final analysis, after spending a scorching day launching up winding Tyrolian mountain roads and then power-luging back down, loathing for Ferrari militants floated to the bottom of my list of reasons to love the GTC4Lusso. The car, it turns out, is spectacular on its own merits, an improvement over the already fantastic FF: It's faster—that’s 3.4 seconds 0-to-60 fast—with more refined, sexy, confident lines, and a cockpit so precisely cut and comfortable it beckons me to keep flogging long after the twisting mountain roads have tired out my eyes.

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