Revealed: the V8, rear-drive Ferrari GTC4Lusso T

New 'entry-level' GTC4Lusso does without AWD or the big V12

 News from Maranello. This is the Ferrari GTC4Lusso T, a rear-wheel-drive, turbocharged V8 version of Ferrari’s rather good all-wheel drive V12-engined grand tourer.

 Set for a Paris Motor Show debut, the T will be the ‘entry-level’ GT4C. Under its lengthily bonnet is the 3.9-litre V8 also seen in the California T, here producing 602bhp and 561lb ft of torque. Ferrari claims 0-62mph in 3.5seconds (a tenth slower than the V12) and a top speed in excess of 200mph. Doesn’t sound very entry-level to us…

This isn’t the first time Ferrari’s offered one of its cars with a choice of engines. Back in the Eighties it stuck a 2.0-litre V8 in the 308 and renamed it the 208. A couple of years later it added a turbocharger and thus, the first road-going turbo Ferrari was born. How times have changed. 

Geared towards “day-to-day driving in urban contexts,” Ferrari boasts that the V8’s “rich powerful soundtrack in acceleration…becomes more muted at lower speeds,” and claims the T has “excellent range”. Something called Variable Boost Management supposedly makes acceleration more progressive.