The Ferrari SF90 Stradale is a dizzying engineering achievement of numbers and downforce and power-to-weight ratios and power output and a big plug. It’s also Ferrari’s first “series production” plug-in hybrid.
Series production is Ferrari-speak for car-that-we-build-a-bunch-of-instead-of-building-just-five. It also has the most powerful eight-cylinder engine of any Ferrari ever, and excitingly (if you’re a Ferrari enthusiast), means that a V8 is the Ferrari’s top-of-the-range engine for the first time.
The 90-degree turbo V8 makes 769 horsepower. The car’s three electric motors (one on the back axle, and two more up front) make another 216 combined electric horsepower. Combined, that’s a whopping 985 total horsepower.
The SF90 Stradale is also the first straightforward Ferrari sports car (not to be confused with GT cars like the Ferrari FF, which are not sports cars in the Ferrari playbook) to come with four-wheel drive.
It goes zero to 62 mph in 2.5 seconds and on to 124 mph in 6.7 seconds. It also handles really well thanks to a whole bunch of wild and amazing technical details crafted by the engineering team that you can read about on Ferrari’s website.
But a Ferrari isn’t really about numbers and engineering. Go buy a McLaren if that’s all you’re interested in. The prancing horse is all about speed and pretty girls and sunshine. It’s about passion for history. A Ferrari is basically Monaco in automotive form.
That passion for history and speed and pretty girls is why Ferrari partnered up with Claude Lelouch, a cult hero in automotive circles for his short film “C’était un Rendez-Vous” shot on the streets of Paris in 1976. That film had a soundtrack from Lelouch’s own Ferrari 275 GTB (it was filmed by a camera mounted on a Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9), and Ferrari felt that now was time for a remake of sorts.
The Monaco Grand Prix is arguably the most iconic motor race in the world. The 2020 running was cancelled, however, thanks to COVID-19. But that wasn’t going to keep Ferrari — the oldest active team in Formula One — from running a car around the city on race day.
And so Lelouch, Ferrari F1 driver and Monagasque Charles Leclerc, a Ferrari SF90 Stradale, and HSH Prince Albert II all got together on the closed streets of Monaco early on May 24. That’s the day the race would have taken place, mind you, and His Serene Highness was kind enough to close all the streets around the Principality so Lelouch and Leclerc could create a new short film: Le Grand Rendez-Vous.
In true Ferrari fashion, it combines what makes a Ferrari a Ferrari and it is perhaps the perfect quarantine antidote for any petrolhead. Watch it, then watch it, then watch it again. It’s guaranteed to put a smile on your face — especially when Leclerc and his lady friend (played by Lelouch’s granddaughter Rebecca) pull their masks off at the end.
Monaco lives. The horse prances. Life goes on.
