Until the beginning of this year, so far as I know, you could count the number officially sanctioned Ferrari Shooting Brakes as absolutely nil until the Sultan of Brunei came along and ordered seven 456 ‘Venice’ shooting brakes around the turn of the millenium.

There had been several unoffical such vehicles stretching back to Count Giovanni Volpi who challenged the mighty Ferrari 250 GTO on the race track with a 250 GT SWB (#2819GT) converted into the legendary ‘Breadvan‘, there have been several other attempts you can judge the success or not of these ‘creations’ on this link.

On March 1st this year that changed when Ferrari launched the $300,000 Ferrari FF a 7 speed, dual clutch, 208mph, 650hp, 4 wheel drive leviathan.

The 6.3 litre / 385 cui 65 degree V12 motor is connected to a conventional gearbox to drive the rear wheels and a unique power take off unit to drive the front wheels that is activated only when the manettino dial on the steering wheel is in ‘comfort’ or ‘snow’ modes.

Just how use full the 16 cubic feet, or 28 cubic feet with the rear seats down, load area remains to be seen, but I guess if painters and decorators start rolling up for work in one of these models I’ll start retraining for new career.

It might be a while before I find the time to visit Maranello to give one of these a spin, but until then my friend Michele Rahal managed to bag the first ever public US seat time in an FF with the wonderful Dana Alloway by his side and a camera on the dash, enjoy this linked clip to find out what your missing if you have not had time to pop into your local Ferrari dealer recently.

Thanks for joining me on this FF edition of ‘Gettin’ a li’l psycho tyres’ I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

PS Don’t forget …

Automobiliart GALPOT Seasonal Quiz

December 26th – January 2nd

Win a set of Paul Chenard Greetings Cards

Set 1 Sports & GT Cars

Set 2 Phil Hill World Drivers Championship 50th Anniversary Edition

Set 3 1934 Season

Set 4 Grand Prix Engines of the 1950’s

or

Set 5 Mike Hawthorn’s Race Cars

The Automobiliart GALPOT Seasonal Quiz will comprise 8 categories.

Overall winner chooses one set of Paul Chenard Greetings Cards from the five sets shown above.

The cards measure 15.24cm x 11.43cm, come in packs of 12 with 3 copies of 4 designs in each set, plus A6 envelopes.

Which set will you choose ?

The free to enter Automobiliart GALPOT Seasonal Quiz will run from December 26th – January 2nd Entries close January 8th 2012, Winner announced January 16th 2012.

Full details on December 26th at GALPOT.

Looking for Automotive Seasonal Gift Idea’s? Visit Automobiliart Now !