HISTORY IS REPLETE with disappointing sequels. Look at Fleetwood Mac. How do you follow Rumours, one of the greatest albums of all time? Hindsight tells us you follow it with the over-indulgent Tusk, at the time the most expensive album ever made, and one that’s been described as the greatest self-sabotage in rock history.
Were you to have read the initial press reports in 2002, you might well have lumped the Ferrari 575M Maranello into the same bag of disappointment as follow-ups like Tusk, Quantum of Solace and the Third Punic War. Had the tifosi just become spoiled by what had gone before?
It’s impossible to argue that its predecessor, the 550 Maranello, set an extremely high bar when it was launched in 1996. Ostensibly a modest reworking and rebody of the existing 456 2+2, the two-seat 550 nevertheless marked a step-change in Ferrari’s big V12 sports cars. Gone were the low-slung, mid-engined wedges like the BB and the Testarossa and in their place came a more classical front engine, rear-drive V12 flagship. If you wanted something lower and angrier, Ferrari was elevating its V8 coupes to a new level of dynamic capability while offering limited-run V12 specials like the F50 and Enzo to those with the means.
Peter Robinson put the 550 through its first comparison
