Having directed the likes of the adventure-filled Last of the Mohicans, sleek, thrilling Miami Vice and the ultimate car chase film, Starsky and Hutch, Michael Mann knows and loves great cars, and makes good use of them to heighten the action sequences in his films.
When he travelled to Italy to chair the Venice Film Festival Jury recently, he also made a return trip to Maranello to personally take delivery of his new F12berlinetta.

This time, however, he wasn’t behind the camera but the wheel of Ferrari’s latest 12-cylinder, a car whose incredible power, performance and vehicle dynamics make it closer to a Formula 1 single-seater than a normal road-going GT.

It takes a great cast to turn a script as complex as that of the F12berlinetta into reality. And Maranello has that great cast. All of whom turned out to greet Mann, a long-time friend of ours here in Ferrari, when he toured the production areas and the Tailor Made atelier. In the latter, in fact, the director was spellbound by the magical meeting of cutting-edge technology and flawless artisan craftsmanship.

Mann already owns two gorgeous Ferraris, a 599 GTB Fiorano and a 599 GTO, but Maranello’s latest star really blew him away. After he’d finished his test-drive, he commented: “You are so closely in tune with the car you feel the same connection as you have with the camera when you’re shooting a scene…the same concentration, the same emotion.”

But Mann didn’t stop smiling even after he’d finished his test-drive because he returned to Venice aboard Maranello’s other 12-cylinder, the FF, which has four full-size seats, four-wheel drive and unusual, sophisticated lines penned by Pininfarina. A package that guarantees driver and passengers will always enjoy a superb ride regardless of weather and road surface conditions.