On my trip to Italy last year, I had pre-booked a number of cars for test drives when I visited the factories. You have already been able to read about Jeep Militem Ferōx E and Dallara Stradale here at carscollection.com. At Ferrari I had booked a Roma Spider. But when I came down to Italy, the Emilia-Romagna area had the worst rainy season in many years. It is precisely in this area that the famous car factories are located. When I arrived and put an address into Google Maps on my phone, the app warned that there could be flooding along the road to where I was going. So picking up a Ferrari convertible when the weather was this bad seemed like a very bad idea. Then I did something that had a result that I probably could not even have hoped for here at home in Sweden, despite my contacts at the car companies here. I contacted Carlos Quintanilla who is my contact at Ferrari and asked if there was any possibility of exchanging the Roma Spider for a Ferrari Purosangue. I did this the day before I was due to collect the car from the factory in Modena. Believe it or not, Carlos informed me after a short while that there would be a Purosangue available for me when I arrived at the factory the next day. Absolutely incredible in my opinion!

The Purosangue is one of the latest Ferrari models. Ferrari themselves do not want to call the Purosangue an SUV. But it is a slightly raised, four-seater and four-wheel drive car model with four doors. So very close to an SUV if you ask me. So whatever Ferrari wants to call the Purosangue, it's a car that can handle bad weather better than many other Ferrari models. 

I pick up the car at the factory entrance, a place I have been to many times. The first time with my father, Bengt Ason Holm, when he was down there completing material for the Cars Collection when he produced it. Then I got to go with him as a teenager, at that time I was more interested in skateboarding than the cars that were built inside the factory. There was a time when I had an iron grip on every kerb and staircase you could skateboard on outside the Ferrari factory, but also the Lamborghini factory where I was with my father. On one of the trips I took the picture below of my father outside the Ferrari factory. My friend Mika Laurino, who was with me that day, took a similar picture of me outside the factory in the same place as I took it of my father. There is a 36-year gap between the pictures. The factory has definitely changed and the cars built there. But if you look closely, you can see that it's the same tree in the background. Slightly bigger and older of course, as I have become. But it feels very nice to follow in my father's footsteps by giving the Cars Collection new life in the form of this site. 

Last time I was down in Italy and visited the Ferrari factory and took out a car, it was a Ferrari 812 SuperfastThe Ferrari 812 Superfast is a real sports car compared to the Purosangue. But what they have in common is their hearts. In both models, Ferrari has been kind enough to fit V12 engines. In the Purosangue, there's a 6.5 litre V12 engine that has 725 horsepower. The sound it makes when you accelerate makes literally every hair on your head stand up. On downshifts, every hair ties itself in a knot of pleasure. This is a big car so the 0 to 100 sprint is "only" 3.3 seconds. Top speed is reached when the speedometer reads 312 kilometres per hour.

My test drive was planned up to Abetone, an Italian ski resort. The road there offers a challenging road with a lot of curves. A bit wet though but nothing that Purosangue could care about thanks to its four-wheel drive. The number of Ferrari models I got to drive can be made long. But the experience in the Ferrari Purosangue was something completely new. It feels a bit odd to sit in a raised Ferrari with good visibility and four doors. The rear doors open from the centre backwards and are so-called suicide doors or girl catcher doors as they can also be called. In the back seat you sit really well. There are two seats with a centre console between the seats. As with the front seats, you can adjust the seat position with controls on the side of the seat. In the centre console you will find compartments and cup holders. So it's a bit of a strange feeling in the back when you know you're in a Ferrari. 

Just as it should be, every single control is a joy to touch and handle in the Ferrari Purosangue. In classic Ferrari style, the control for setting the car's character is found at the bottom right of the steering wheel, the so-called manettino knob. Here you set how the car will behave on the road and how early the traction control system will engage. During today's test drive, I chose not to have the manettino mode "ESC Off" as I wanted to be able to return the car in the same shipment as I got it out. 

It is behind the wheel that you should experience a Ferrari. My experience behind the wheel of the Purosangue obviously left me wanting more. A Ferrari Purosangue is tailor-made for our Swedish roads, summer and winter. 

Ferrari Purosangue

Price: SEK 4 500 000

Engine: 6.5 L V12

Power: 725 hp, 716 Nm

Transmission: Eight-speed dual-clutch automatic, four-wheel drive

Acceleration: 0-100 km/h in 3 seconds

Top speed: 330 km/h

Weight: 2 250 kg

Dimensions (length/width/height): 4970 x 2030 x 1590 mm