Every few years, residents of Sicily are treated to a spectacular sight. For nearly five days, about 100 Ferraris roar through the streets of the beautiful Italian island as part of the Ferrari Cavalcade. They zoom past all the iconic tourism highlights that Members attending the 2026 Capricorn Convention in Cefalù will get to enjoy—the historic palazzos, an erupting Mount Etna, the stunning Nebrodi Mountains, the picture postcard villages that dot the Tyrrhenian coast.
All generations of the famous Italian carmaker’s vehicles are represented at these invitation-only Cavalcades. They’re hosted in different Italian regions each year but regularly return to Sicily—home of the famous (now long defunct) Targa Florio, where Enzo Ferrari himself often raced—and to Cefalù—where leather racing shoes were made for almost 60 years. Go along to a Cavalcade and you can expect to see the 458 Speciale, the 150 GT Berliner SWB, the Pista Spider, the 599 GTO, and, of course, the Ferrari Enzo, among others.
Ferrari is clearly a manufacturer that celebrates its history and marks its milestones. It celebrated its fortieth birthday with the F40, its fiftieth with the F50. It’s now celebrating its eightieth with the F80. The F80 is the successor to the LaFerrari, and it’s the kind of jaw dropping limited-release mega-expensive hypercar that leaves fans of “the prancing horse” drooling.
Billed as Ferrari’s most powerful roadgoing car yet, the F80 isn’t some purring V12. It’s got a hybrid V6 powertrain with a 3.0-litre twin-turbo that generates genuinely staggering 1200 horsepower or 882 kW (900 hp or 662 kW from the F163CF engine and a further 300 hp or 220 kW from the electric front axle and the motor of the hybrid system). It’s an 8-speed dual-clutch F1 DCT, all-wheel drive.
It does zero to 100 kmh in 2.15 seconds (braking distance from 100 kmh is 28 m) and zero to 200 kmh in 5.75 seconds (braking distance from 200 kmh is 98 m). The top speed is 350 kmh.
The car weighs in at 1525 kg dry and not a gram of that is wasted. The F80 takes everything Ferrari has learned on the track and optimises it for the road. The F80 has a carbon-fibre chassis, extreme aerodynamic solutions far beyond anything we’re used to seeing on the road—creating more than 1000 kg of downforce at 250 kmh.
Ferrari says the architecture of the engine and many of its components are derived from the powerplant of the 499P, which won the 2023 and 2024 editions of the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
But how does it look? Is it as aggressive as the F40, as sleek as the F50 or as awe-inspiring as the LaFerrari? Ferrari says the design has “a strongly futuristic visual impact with unmistakeable references to aerospace”. The car has a dihedral cross-section with its two bottom corners firmly planted on the wheels. From the side, the rear section has “a sculpted flow that emphasises the muscularity of the entire rear wing”. The front wheel arch ends in a vertical panel that stands proud of the door, “paying homage to the visual language of the F40”. Like the LaFerrari, it has butterfly doors. Top Gear’s reporters said it was “brutal, challenging, and forward thinking”.
While this is technically a two-seater, the cockpit has a distinctly single-seater feel. The architecture of the car is so extreme Ferrari has had to narrow the cabin, meaning the passenger seat is set slightly back and resembles nothing so much as a child’s safety seat, so they’re describing the vehicle’s carrying capacity as “one-plus”.
There’s also a new steering wheel design which Ferrari says they will use on all roadgoing models from now on. It has flattened top and bottom rims and a smaller boss to improve visibility. Ferrari has also ditched the full digital steering wheel layout used in recent years, heralding the return of “buttons that can be instantly identified by touch”.
The price tag is north of A$5 million. While Lewis Hamilton could sneeze and have that kind of change fall out of his pocket, for most of us, it puts the F80 beyond our reach (and all its 799 subscriptions have been filled in any case). So, if you really want to experience an F80 in action, you’ll just have to get along to a Ferrari Cavalcade someday. Sadly, it's not happening when the Convention is on in Cefalù, but it’s Italy—you’re bound to spot a Ferrari or two cruising the streets!
Images by Ferrari
