PHOTOGRAPHY STEFFEN JAHN
T
his has been a vintage year for the supercar. Some continue to rage against the dying of internal combustion, with Lamborghini somehow managing to find more life in the ageing Huracán chassis, and Aston plonking the biggest motor it can find in the Vantage. Porsche has sought to bend nature with the latest GT3 RS, creating perhaps the first car to live in the shadow of its own wing, while Maserati has stepped out of the shadows and given us its first supercar for 50 years. McLaren, meanwhile, has delivered the Artura.
The hybrid supercar era has arrived. However, its first icon doesn’t belong to McLaren, but Ferrari. The 296 GTB is a stellar supercar, not just the best of this year, but perhaps the best of the last decade. What makes it so good? That it took the learning of the immensely capable and shockingly fast SF90, and used it as a springboard. The tech involved is deeply, furiously complex, but the 296 comes across as wonderfully simple to drive, and while the SF90 was gobsmacking but complex and felt like it, this one is pure fun.