New Ferrari 849 Testarossa: The ‘Red Head’ Returns With 1023 BHP And A Plug.

Some names don’t merely return; they arrive with a drum roll. “Testarossa” is one of them. For many of us it still means side strakes, a wide tail and a flat-twelve that sounded like late-night television in stereo. Forty years on, Ferrari has brought the badge back for a very different age. 

The new 849 Testarossa is a plug-in hybrid, mid-engine berlinetta that replaces the SF90 Stradale at the top of Ferrari’s range, combining a heavily reworked twin-turbo V8 with three electric motors for a system total of 1,023 bhp. On paper, at least, this is the most advanced series-production Ferrari yet.

Ferrari’s award-winning F154 3.9-litre V8 has been re-engineered to 809 bhp, thanks to larger turbos on low-friction bearings, revised heads and block, lighter internals and a reworked exhaust manifold. If you’re keeping score, that’s a 48 bhp bump over the SF90’s engine output. The electric side contributes 214 bhp split three ways: a motor on the rear axle and two on the front for all-wheel drive and torque vectoring. The 7.45 kWh battery lives low in the chassis and in eDrive, will shuffle the car through town for roughly 16 miles in silence.

No performance figures accompany the unveiling, but the SF90 dispatched 0 - 62 mph in around 2.5 seconds. With more power, revised calibration and similar weight claimed, I’m sure the 849 will feel like a machine that simply edits time.

Power is only amusing when it behaves, so the headline tech is Ferrari’s new acronym ‘FIVE’ (meaning Ferrari Integrated Vehicle Estimator), which is a real-time digital twin that estimates things you can’t measure directly (vehicle speed and yaw with tiny error margins) and feeds that to the e-differential, e-AWD and traction systems. Add in ABS Evo, a new brake-by-wire tune and stiffer, lighter hardware and you’ve the recipe for later, harder, more repeatable braking and a car that should respond with the sort of clean, calm precision that flatters mere mortals like us.

Downforce is up too: 415 kg at 155 mph, with a redesigned front underfloor and a lighter active rear wing switching between low-drag and high-downforce in less than a second. The Assetto Fiorano package goes further - less mass (around 30 kg out), more aero, Multimatic dampers and Cup tyres - for customers who consider corduroy to be a track fabric.

It’s not retro, but it winks at history. Up front, a horizontal “bridge” fascia spans the nose, channelling air and recalling 1980s Ferraris without pastiche. Along the flanks the doors are hollowed into functional ducts feeding the intercoolers and at the back, a twin-tail architecture nods to the 512 S prototypes. Two round tailpipes take centre stage; subtle if you remember the original TR’s twin-stack quad arrangement but the stance is emphatic and the surfacing sharp.

Inside, the look is definitely more ‘modern’ Ferrari: digital cluster, passenger screen and that gated-style selector now integrated into a floating sail in the centre tunnel (a tasteful nod to tradition?). 

The new steering wheel swaps some capacitive frippery for proper mechanical buttons, which is the sort of progress anyone who’s tried to honk a touch-sensitive horn will appreciate. Expect it to feel purposefully snug, with visibility that’s better than it looks from outside but still very much restricted.

Ferrari talks about a “new sonic dimension” for the V8, with brighter low- and mid-range tones and a revised upshift strategy (borrowed from the SF90 XX) that should make hard changes feel and sound deliberately mechanical. The red cam covers that gave the original Testa Rossa its name still applies but the timbre will be turbocharged theatre rather than flat-twelve howl.

Ferrari hasn’t created this car in a vacuum. The 849 Testarossa wades into a very small pool of mid-engine, electrified super-flagships and here’s where it sits.

Lamborghini Revuelto (V12 PHEV, 1,001 BHP)

Sant’Agata’s V12 plug-in Revuelto matches the Ferrari on headline drama and broadly on peak output. It’s all-wheel drive with three e-motors and a tiny battery mostly there to torque-fill and creep through cities without offending the mayor. The Lambo’s tune is operatic: long-travel throttle, big-car feel and a riot of noise and light. The Ferrari counters with less mass on the nose, a shorter wheelbase feel and what will almost certainly be sharper front-axle response thanks to RAC-e torque vectoring and the FIVE brain. If the Revuelto is the cathedral, the 849 is likely to be the surgical theatre.

McLaren 750S (V8, 740 bhp, No Plug!)

Woking’s best isn’t hybrid at all, which makes it lighter and simpler. A 750S feels like a driver’s car first and a headline act second, with hydraulic cross-linked damping that remains a benchmark for real roads. Against that, the Ferrari brings near-four-figure thrust available anywhere, all-weather e-AWD and active aero that can play magician with stability and braking. The McLaren answers with feel, steering purity and less complexity. One suspects that on a cold, greasy B-road the 849’s electric front axle will give it absurd traction but on a hot circuit with equal tyres, the 750S may still feel the more transparent tool. Different philosophies, both valid.

Aston Martin Valhalla (V8 PHEV, 1,064 bhp, Due Soon)

Gaydon’s forthcoming Valhalla will be the philosophical neighbour: a mid-engined hybrid with a racing-derived brief. Aston’s emphasis is claimed to be driver involvement rather than arms-race numbers, with active aero and a carbon tub pointing to serious intent. The Ferrari looks readier and more integrated right now: the hybrid calibration, the e-AWD logic and that FIVE estimator suggest a car that may deliver its performance more often, in more places. Expect the Valhalla to go for feel and theatre, the Ferrari for repeatable lap-time confidence. Tasty duel.

I’m told that the original Testarossa was an assault on the senses: outrageous width, side strakes the size of Venetian blinds and a soundtrack that begged for tunnels. The new one aims for a different kind of excess: computational power, aero load and instant torque layered over an old-fashioned storm of combustion.

If the calibration is as good as the spec suggests, I’m sure the 849 will feel like a tidier, more incisive SF90: faster at the top end, keener at turn-in and more stable on the brakes. The front-motor torque vectoring should let you steer with the throttle in that faintly witchcraft way modern hybrids can, while the revised shift strategy ought to keep the experience mechanical rather than PlayStation.

Expect road manners that are civilised (silent EV trickle when required), ride quality that’s taut but acceptable on 20-inch tyres and a cockpit that’s busier than purists would like but blessedly free of touch-only gimmicks.

Will it make the hairs rise like a flat-twelve Testarossa on full song? Probably not, as nothing does. But the new 849 almost certainly understands the brief. When the first independent drives happen, the interesting question won’t be “how fast?” as we already know the answer. It might more likely be “how much of that speed you can actually use?” and whether the on-paper cleverness translates into the simple, old-fashioned thrill that put the Testarossa on our walls in the first place.