Ferrari and Lamborghini V12: The Last Great Twelve-Cylinder Supercars, and How to Drive Them Across Italy's Lakes and Islands
There is a sound that no electric motor will ever replicate, no matter how sophisticated the software behind it. It is the sound of twelve cylinders climbing toward nine thousand revolutions per minute, a mechanical howl that begins somewhere deep in the chest and finishes as pure emotion. For eighty years it has defined the very top of the automotive world, and today it belongs to two names above all others: Ferrari and Lamborghini.
We are living through the final chapter of the naturally aspirated V12, and the most sophisticated travellers in the world understand exactly what that means. At Luxury Car Hire Europe, we deliver these machines directly to your five-star resort, private villa, superyacht, or airport, anywhere across the Italian mainland, the great northern lakes, and the islands. For guests arriving from New York, London, Sydney, Oslo, Stockholm, Paris, Toronto, Shanghai, Dubai, Tel Aviv, Kyiv, and Moscow, this is the experience that Italy alone can offer. Here is everything you need to know.
Why is the V12 engine so special?
The V12 is the most emotionally powerful engine configuration ever built, and the reason is both technical and human. Twelve cylinders arranged in two banks of six produce a naturally balanced engine with almost no vibration, allowing extraordinarily high revolutions and a linear, endlessly building surge of power. Where a turbocharged engine delivers a sudden shove, a naturally aspirated V12 delivers a crescendo. The throttle response is instant, the sound rises in perfect proportion to your right foot, and the experience is closer to conducting an orchestra than operating a machine.
For decades, the V12 was the signature of the world's greatest supercars. Today, tightening global regulations and the shift toward electrification mean that very few manufacturers still build one. Ferrari and Lamborghini are the last two names keeping the flame alive, and both have chosen to do so in spectacular fashion.
The Ferrari 12Cilindri: the purest V12 grand tourer of its generation
The Ferrari 12Cilindri is the modern heir to the great front-engined V12 Ferraris, a direct spiritual descendant of the legendary 365 GTB/4 Daytona. Its 6.5-litre naturally aspirated V12 produces 830 horsepower and revs to an astonishing 9,500 rpm, with no turbochargers and no hybrid assistance to soften the experience. Zero to one hundred kilometres per hour arrives in 2.9 seconds, and the top speed exceeds 340 kilometres per hour.
What makes the 12Cilindri extraordinary is not the numbers. It is the purity. In an era when almost every supercar has adopted electrification, Ferrari built a car whose entire character rests on the unfiltered voice of twelve cylinders. The Luxury Car Hire Europe fleet includes the Ferrari 12Cilindri finished in a striking Montecarlo Yellow, a colour that turns an already dramatic silhouette into something genuinely unforgettable on an Italian coastal road.
Ferrari brings back the manual gearbox: the 12Cilindri Manuale
In one of the most surprising announcements in recent Ferrari history, Maranello has revived the manual gearbox for its V12 grand tourer. The Ferrari 12Cilindri Manuale features a classic open-gate aluminium shifter and a real clutch pedal, the first manual-style Ferrari since 2012.
The technology behind it is remarkable. Neither the lever nor the clutch pedal is mechanically connected to the transmission. Instead, Ferrari developed a new Manuale by-wire system in which sensors read the exact position of the shifter and the precise travel of the clutch, translating those inputs into electronic commands that operate the existing dual-clutch gearbox in milliseconds. The clutch pedal carries real, engineered resistance, and the car genuinely stalls if you mistime it. Only 1,499 examples will ever be built, each through Ferrari's Tailor Made programme, at an announced Italian price of 590,000 euros.
The Lamborghini Revuelto: the most powerful V12 Lamborghini ever built
If the Ferrari 12Cilindri represents V12 purity, the Lamborghini Revuelto represents V12 ambition. The Revuelto is the successor to the Aventador and the first V12 hybrid in Lamborghini's history, and the result is staggering. A 6.5-litre naturally aspirated V12 mounted behind the driver combines with three electric motors to produce more than 1,000 horsepower, launching the car from zero to one hundred kilometres per hour in just 2.5 seconds, with a top speed of 350 kilometres per hour.
Crucially, Lamborghini did not use hybridisation to replace the V12. It used it to amplify it. The twelve-cylinder engine remains naturally aspirated, revving to 9,500 rpm, with the electric motors filling in torque at low speeds so that the V12 can be tuned entirely for the top of its range. The Revuelto is the loudest, most theatrical, most extroverted expression of the twelve-cylinder engine on sale anywhere in the world, and the Luxury Car Hire Europe fleet carries it.
Ferrari or Lamborghini: which V12 should you drive?
This is the question our clients ask most often, and there is no wrong answer, only different characters.
The Ferrari 12Cilindri is a grand tourer in the truest sense. Front-engined, elegant, devastatingly fast, but civilised enough to cross an entire country in comfort. It is the car for the lakeside road from Como to Bellagio, for the long sweep of the Tuscan hills, for arriving at a five-star resort with quiet authority. It rewards subtlety.
The Lamborghini Revuelto is theatre. Mid-engined, aggressive, impossible to ignore, with scissor doors and a shape that stops traffic in every town it enters. It is the car for the Amalfi Coast in high summer, for the Costa Smeralda in August, for the moment when arrival itself is the statement. It rewards audacity.
Many of our clients solve the dilemma in the most satisfying way possible: they hire both, one for each half of the journey, or one for each couple in a multi-car tour.
Where to drive a V12 in Italy: lakes, coasts, and islands
Italy offers the finest V12 driving roads on earth, and Luxury Car Hire Europe delivers to all of them.
On the northern lakes, the road along Lake Como past Bellagio and Varenna, the western shore of Lake Garda with its tunnels carved into the rock, and the quiet perfection of Lake Orta provide some of the most beautiful driving in Europe, all within easy reach of legendary hotels such as Grand Hotel Tremezzo, Villa d'Este, and Villa Crespi.
On the Amalfi Coast, the corniche between Positano, Amalfi, and Ravello delivers a sequence of views that no photograph has ever captured properly, with the Belmond Hotel Caruso and Il San Pietro di Positano as your base.
On the islands, Sardinia's Costa Smeralda offers open coastal roads and the most exclusive summer scene in the Mediterranean, while Sicily rewards the traveller with the ascent toward Taormina and the roads around Mount Etna. Capri and Ischia complete the picture for those arriving by yacht or helicopter.
And in Emilia-Romagna, the Motor Valley itself, the roads between Modena, Maranello, and Sant'Agata Bolognese let you drive a Ferrari or Lamborghini through the very landscape that created it.
Multi-car V12 tours: a convoy of legends
For families travelling together, groups of friends marking a milestone, collectors who want to share the road, and corporate incentive guests, Luxury Car Hire Europe arranges multi-car tours with impeccable logistical precision. A convoy of Ferraris and Lamborghinis moving in formation through the Italian landscape is one of the rarest sights in the world, and for our clients it is not a sight at all. It is the view from the driver's seat.
We coordinate everything: routes designed around the finest hotels and restaurants, a lead car, dedicated assistance throughout, professional photography and cinematic drone coverage on request, and helicopter transfers where they add something no road can. Our tour experiences span Tuscany, the Motor Valley, the Southern Italy route from Rome to Puglia, and the Monte Carlo corridor along the French and Italian Riviera.
Why the world's most discerning travellers choose Italy
There is a reason travellers who could go anywhere choose Italy for this. The country that builds Ferrari and Lamborghini is the same country that perfected the art of hospitality, the same country whose lakeside and coastal roads seem designed for a twelve-cylinder engine, the same country where a five-star resort, a Michelin-starred dinner, and an unforgettable drive can all belong to a single day.
American and Canadian collectors come to understand the machines they admire. British and Australian enthusiasts come for the legendary driving roads. Norwegian, Swedish, and French travellers come for the light, the contrast, and the romance. Chinese guests, among the most sophisticated luxury clients in the world, come for the heritage and the prestige of Italian craftsmanship. Arab and Israeli travellers come for a standard of luxury that meets their own without compromise. Ukrainian and Russian-speaking guests come because they know Italy intimately and understand that the right car turns a familiar country into something entirely new.
How to hire a Ferrari or Lamborghini V12 in Italy
Our service is built on a single principle: the car comes to you. We deliver to five-star hotels, luxury resorts, private villas, superyacht berths, and airports across the Italian mainland, the lakes, and the islands. No rental counters, no queues, no compromise. Your Ferrari or Lamborghini arrives fuelled, immaculate, and ready, and we collect it when you are ready to release it.
The naturally aspirated V12 is one of the great endangered species of the automotive world. Ferrari and Lamborghini are writing its final chapters right now, and those chapters are the most extraordinary yet. The opportunity to drive one of these engines on Italian roads, between five-star resorts, above the lakes and along the islands, will not exist forever.
Contact our concierge team through the website or via WhatsApp. Tell us where you are staying, when you are arriving, and whether you are travelling alone, as a couple, or as a group who would like a convoy at their disposal. We handle the rest. The age of the V12 is drawing toward its close, and there has never been a better moment to hear one at full voice on an Italian road.
Excellence isn't owned. It's driven.
Discover the last great naturally aspirated V12 supercars from Ferrari and Lamborghini, including the 12Cilindri, the new Manuale, and the 1,000hp Revuelto, and hire one across Italy's lakes, coasts and islands with door-to-door delivery to your five-star resort, villa or airport by Luxury Car Hire Europe.
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