Pininfarina – the celebrated Italian design house – has, over the past several decades, produced some of the most timeless and glorious shapes in the history of the motorcar. Their most recent creation was the Italia, which is perhaps the most beautiful form to come out of Maranello in some time.

The Italia is an out-and-out sports car – very singular in its purpose. The FF, however, is meant to be a versatile Ferrari. It should seat four comfortably, carry their leather trimmed luggage, and even traverse the odd snow covered road if need be. Now, that’s a much tougher brief to follow. What they’ve come up with is what you see here. Undoubtedly, it’s a polarizing shape that’ll have Ferrari purists frothing at the mouth.

But it does actually have some resemblance to one of the most legendary Ferrari’s of all time – the 250GTO. You see, Ferrari created a special version of the 250GT SWB (short wheelbase) in 1962 to make it more aerodynamically efficient. And, to do that, they created a three-door ‘shooting-break’ body style, which aptly earned it the nickname – the ‘Breadvan.’ So, in a sense, this is Ferrari’s second Breadvan – eh, shooting break. What the shape actually does is allow for a great deal of utility, as it provides space for the rear seat passengers, as well as some cargo room in the boot.

You may or may not appreciate the design, but you’ll certainly love the mechanical bits. Ferrari decided to leave nothing to chance in this department, and gave the FF a 6,262cc direct injection V12 producing – hold your breath – 650 horsepower. Well, that’s a versatile Ferrari for you. It’ll do 0-100km/h in a mind numbing 3.7 seconds, and accelerate all the way to 335km/h.

And, a first for Ferrari is the four-wheel drive system – referred to as 4RM – which weighs 50% less than a conventional four-wheel drive layout. Moreover, and despite the V12 under the hood, it maintains Ferrari’s ideal weight distribution of 53% over the rear axle. Of course, it does a few thousand calculations a second to ensure that it puts the power down in an optimised manner – depending on conditions and the terrain.

The FF will get its first preview in the flesh at the Geneva Motor Show. And with talk of Ferrari seriously considering the Indian market, it may not be presumptuous to imagine being able to walk into your very own Ferrari dealer to place an order for the FF. Of course, being Ferrari’s latest flagship, it has an all-new chassis, which comes with the latest magnetic damping system and Brembo’s most recent development in carbon-ceramic brakes.

Whether or not you fancy a three-door Ferrari is up to you. I can assure you this much – from behind the wheel, it won’t matter if you had to squeeze your way through the sunroof to get in!