The Veloce12 is Touring Superleggera’s restomodded ode to the 550 Maranello

Touring Superleggera has cranked out a few stone-cold classics in its time, but this one threatens to be the stoniest and coldest of all. It’s a restomod of Ferrari’s big hearted V12 icon, the 550 Maranello, here rebooted, re-suited and freshly re-powered.

“The Veloce12 is a tribute to unbridled performance and analogue driving pleasure,” TS proclaims. As such, the donor ‘F133’ 5.5-litre V12 sitting in the nose of the 550 has been treated to a thorough, nuts and bolts, strip-it-down-and-rebuild-using-new-everything going over.

It remains a naturally aspirated unit, here benefitting from a completely new cooling system offering a 30 per cent increase in cooling power, and a new ‘Supersprint’ exhaust, capped off by a set of twin tailpipes.

The result is a hair under 500bhp – a small gain on what Ferrari managed back in the Nineties – delivered to the rear wheels via a six-speed manual gearbox. TS claims 0-62mph in 4.4s and a 199mph top speed, which should sound fairly dramatic.

Stopping it with drama are six-pot front/four-pot rear Brembo calipers clamping onto mammoth 380mm discs all round, hiding behind bespoke lightweight wheels developed and designed in house by TS.

Further inside lies a new TracTive bespoke suspension setup with adaptive dampers, while the 550’s chassis itself was subject to a ‘significant’ increase in torsional stiffness, “thus improving handling and precision”.

Speaking of precision, that bodyshape. Oof. It’s all been handcrafted from carbon fibre as you’d expect, using CAD, CFD and – likely – a lot of emozione. “The design advances Touring’s legacy,” said design boss Matteo Gentile, “and takes certain classic concepts a step further. The Veloce12 is a celebration of our storied past, a showcase of our present capabilities, and a glimpse into the future of grand touring excellence.” Quite.

Naturally there’s a swathe of expensive, luxury leather swaddling the 12’s interior, new, “ergonomically sculpted seats” for better support, and a dash of modernity to bring it up to date. Mostly though: open-gate manual, classic gearlever, lots of buttons, gorgeous leather.

“While it draws inspiration from our iconic models, it is unmistakably timeless,” said boss Markus Tellenbach. “We intentionally honoured our rich heritage, but we also embraced modern innovation to create a vehicle that represents the most exclusive grand touring experience.”

Naturally, this heritage and innovation and exclusivity and big fat nat-asp V12 comes at a price. Touring Superleggera is only building 30 of these things, with each one starting at €690,000… plus the donor 550 Maranello. Though, you do get a three-year warranty on the car, and a one year/7,000-mile warranty on the engine. Worth it for – as TS puts it – an “antidote to electronic overload”?