We Took Ferrari’s $1 Million SUV to the Australian Outback

The way that everyone looked at us as we stood around the 2025 Ferrari Purosangue at Broken Hill airport. It looked perfectly out of place, but with its feet firmly planted in the red dirt for the first time, it all started to make a great deal of sense.

Pros	Cons
Blistering naturally aspirated V12 performance, exceptional ride and handling thanks to world-first active suspension, genuine Ferrari steering feel, luxurious yet practical interior, and everyday usability without sacrificing brand soul. It’s the most engaging, dynamic SUV-sized vehicle on the market, capable on highways, twisty roads, and unexpected terrain alike.	Prohibitively expensive once options are added, limited rear-seat access due to low roofline, no central touchscreen, fiddly capacitive controls, and subdued V12 drama at low speeds. Its exclusivity and invitation-only purchasing process also put it firmly out of reach for most.

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You don’t usually take Ferraris to the outback, let alone ones that cost $1 million drive-away (from AUD$728,000 before on-road costs and options), but this isn’t your typical Ferrari. Sure, it has the heart of the brand in its engine bay, a naturally aspirated 6.5-litre V12 engine (F140IA), producing 533 kW (725 HP) and 716 Nm of torque, delivering blistering performance with a 0-100 km/h time of 3.3 seconds. However, the most impressive aspects of this car are its suspension, technology, and practicality.

Like I experienced in New Zealand two years ago, it accomplishes all these things without sacrificing the heart and soul of the brand. It’s fun to drive, more so than any other SUV-sized vehicle in this category, including the Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT. Except, it does the “other stuff” better than any other Ferrari before it. Here, in this article, I’ll explain why we took a Purosangue to the Outback.

Price

The 2025 Ferrari Purosangue is priced from AUD$728,000 before on-road costs and options.

If that makes you fall off your chair, then you’ll likely faint when we tell you that most owners spend upwards of $1 million by the time options have been added and the car is in their driveway. Truthfully, most owners take their allocations very seriously, as interest in the model was so strong initially that orders were paused in late 2022, and the 18-month waitlist was trimmed.

Theoretically, it competes with the Bentley Bentayga Speed (from AUD$513,600 before on-road costs) and the Aston Martin DBX S (from AUD$475,000 before on-road costs).

Still, most Ferrari clients won’t consider anything else on the market. You must be invited to purchase a Ferrari Purosangue, whereas you can walk into any other dealership and purchase a competitor’s model. That is the way with Ferrari, and their products demand this level of respect. So, to show their new SUV the utmost respect, we took it to the Australian Outback for this review.

Interior

The interior looks, feels and functions like the two-seat supercars in the brand’s fleet. It’s practically a replica of the 296 GTB dual cockpit dashboard concept, but in SUV form, which means added space and comfort for front and rear passengers.

You wouldn’t usually take an expensive Italian car into the Outback, but we did it for these reasons. Materials inside the cabin feel incredibly expensive, soft to the touch thanks to variable-density foams, and have a premium leather scent that is only found in high-end cars, such as Bentley and Rolls-Royce.

There’s an elegant double cup holder made of glass that I exercised religiously on these hot spring days, as well as comfort-focused upholstered areas that integrate armrests and door handles.

The driving position itself is all business, with a private jet-like comfort to the seats that can be positioned nicely and low to inspire a supercar experience. Seats are heated (although I didn’t need it), and if you tick enough boxes, they’ll also come with a range of massage and ventilation functions (much needed) in both the front and rear.

Despite the rear-hinged doors (with a 79-degree opening) and nearly 5-metre length, it’s still a bit of a struggle to get into the back seats. That’s primarily due to the low roofline that Ferrari has chosen for design reasons, but I’d happily sacrifice the glasshouse for a swoopy roof. Frankly, anyone sitting in the back of a car like this should be happy to be there, and it’s the type of place that you’d happily spend some time. Rear seats also fold flat, significantly increasing luggage capacity.

The steering wheel is a carry-over item from the brand’s supercars and remains one of the best in the industry. Still, I’d prefer to have permanently lit capacitive touch buttons to control the display in front of me.

The omission of a central touchscreen remains an issue for the driver, as all information must be configured, controlled, and viewed on a 10.2-inch digital instrument cluster, which features Android Auto and Apple CarPlay systems as standard for the first time. You can’t have both Waze for navigation and the classic Ferrari tachometer in the centre of the screen, which is unfortunate.

What’s particularly impressive is the Burmester 3D High-End Surround Sound System, which I made the most of on my journey in the Outback. If you haven’t listened to “The Horses” while driving a $1 million Ferrari Purosangue in the Australian Outback, then I highly recommend it. That, and a bit of Barnsy, doesn’t go astray. To audiophiles, the ribbon tweeter made its first appearance in any production car here, and the subwoofer is housed in its own closed cabinet for ultimate bass clarity and power.

Overall, the interior of the Purosangue is precisely what you’d hope and expect to find in a Ferrari SUV. It’s more practical and comfortable than any Ferrari before it, but it hasn’t stepped awkwardly into the world of traditional SUVs.

Driving

There were only a few roads where I could push the Purosangue’s chassis (it’s the desert). Still, having previously spent a week behind the wheel on some of NZ’s best driving roads, I’ll briefly explain why it’s so impressive on both open roads and through twisty mountain passes.

Initially, the brand was firmly against calling this an “SUV” because it doesn’t drive like one. It’s almost cliché to say that, but with the world-first Ferrari active suspension system using Multimatic True Active Spool Valve (TASV) technology, it actually delivers on its promise. This is a fully active, 48-volt system that controls body roll, pitch, and wheel movement in real-time. With an actively lowered roll centre (up to 10 mm), cornering balance and tyre contact are improved, making it supercar fun from behind the wheel.

Weave in independent four-wheel steering that enhances agility, stability and yaw control in both slow and fast corners, and ABS ‘Evo’ with brake-by-wire and grip estimation, and you have the most dynamic SUV in the world.

There really isn’t an SUV on the planet that can compete with the Purosangue in this regard, and it’s applying technology that has since trickled down into the world’s best GT sports cars, including the new Ferrari 12Cilindri Spider.

When you want to have fun, Side Slip Control 8.0 integrates steering, traction, braking and suspension into a single dynamic system.

The Purosangue is built on an all-new spaceframe chassis constructed primarily from high-strength aluminium alloys. It features a carbon-fibre roof as standard, which lowers the centre of gravity and reduces weight. For those who wonder why the brand didn’t simply reinvent another four-seater, the overall torsional rigidity has improved by 30% and beam stiffness by 25% compared to previous Ferrari four-seaters.

It’s a classic case of excellent engineering, where the sum of its parts produces an exceptional vehicle to drive, not individual parts. However, if you want to discuss particular aspects, then the engine is where the heart and soul of Ferrari remain intact in this Purosangue.

The naturally aspirated 6.5-litre V12 (F140IA) engine, featuring a 65-degree bank angle and dry sump lubrication, has been neatly integrated into the engine. Mostly seen behind the front axle, a weight distribution of 49% front and 51% rear has been achieved. This engine produces 725 CV (715 HP) at 7,750 rpm and 716 Nm of torque at 6,250 rpm, but it can scream its way to 8,250 rpm with that characteristically linear, high-revving Ferrari power delivery.

What’s different about this engine is that it delivers 80% of its maximum torque from just 2,100 rpm, providing strong low-rev response. Thanks to intake, timing, and exhaust system changes, this makes it more drivable around town. When you’re out on the highway, the longer eighth gear in the 8-speed oil-bath dual-clutch transmission is tuned for relaxed, efficient cruising at the national speed limit. This gearbox has shift times faster than the brand’s previous 7-speed DCT, with shorter, more progressive ratios.

0–100 km/h is achieved in 3.3 seconds and 0–200 km/h in 10.6 seconds before going on to a top speed exceeding 310 km/h.

While the Purosangue has equal-length exhaust manifolds and progressive silencers that deliver a classic Ferrari V12 soundtrack, adjustable via Manettino on the steering wheel, it isn’t the loudest car in the brand’s fleet. Unlike the twin-turbo V8 engines in other performance SUVs from Aston Martin and Porsche, the theatre of the V12 isn’t felt around town. Of course, it’s unbeatable when subjected to hard acceleration.

Verdict

It’s not every day that you take a $1 million Ferrari into the Outback, to landmark destinations like the Silverton Hotel from Mad Max, but it once and for all proved to me why Ferrari built the Purosangue.

The brand is built for successful dreamers, people who want to create and add to their lives, and for many years, there wasn’t a vehicle that could “do everything.” With the technology that engineers have skillfully built into the Purosangue, now is indeed the right time to create a Ferrari SUV.

It has proven itself to be a comfortable daily driver, a mountain carver, a motorway cruiser, and, most importantly, with the heart and soul of the brand under the hood, a Ferrari.