FERRARI

550

The Ferrari 550 Maranello marked Ferrari's emphatic return to the front-engined V12 two-seat berlinetta, a layout the company had abandoned when the 365 GTB/4 Daytona ended production in 1973. Unveiled to the press in July 1996 at the Nurburgring, the Ferrari 550 was championed by chairman Luca di Montezemolo as proof that a front-engined car could outperform the mid-engined Testarossa lineage it replaced. Pininfarina, under design director Lorenzo Ramaciotti, gave the Ferrari 550 a restrained, muscular body with deliberate nods to the Daytona and 275 GTB. Its 5.5-litre 65-degree V12, Tipo F133, produced 485 hp, driving the rear wheels through a rear-mounted six-speed transaxle with Ferrari's iconic open-gate manual shifter, good for 199 mph and 0-100 km/h in about 4.4 seconds. Unlike its predecessors, the Ferrari 550 combined supercar pace with genuine usability: a proper trunk, a comfortable leather-lined cabin and forgiving handling. In 2000, Ferrari celebrated Pininfarina's 70th anniversary with the 550 Barchetta Pininfarina, an open-top version limited to 448 units. Berlinetta production ended in 2002 after 3,083 cars, when the more powerful 575M Maranello took over. Today the Ferrari 550 is prized as the last V12 Ferrari berlinetta offered exclusively with a gated manual gearbox, and collector momentum behind analog manual V12 Ferraris has made it one of the strongest-appreciating modern classics of 2026.