Ferrari 612

Ferrari 612 Scaglietti, pronounced SKAL-yetti, named for a Ferrari designer) is the biggest Ferrari, the 2+2 designation meaning it can hold two in back in Mustang levels of comfort, with a faux-suede-lined trunk big enough for two of three soft-sided bags. It's a grand touring car meant to cover long stretches of highway in supreme comfort, say Paris-Berlin. Ferrari and Bose chose each other to provide what turns out to be a highly useful system for radio and iPod playback, a bit less intuitive for navigation. The excellence of the audio system is a good match for the overall excellence of the car.

While the Ferrari prancing horse emblem is on the hood, my test car was done in a champagne silver color and in combination with a design that has its critics owing to the overly long hood, it's not the head turner in the manner of a Ferrari F430 in the signature racing red livery. I have, however, spent few days more enjoyable than in the 612. It has a V12 engine much beloved by OPEC countries and a jerky and unrefined automatically operated manual transmission that has no clutch pedal - jerky even after many years of refinement.

Virtually every cockpit surface you don't see out of, or rest your feet on, is covered in buttery brown leather, even the headliner and transmission tunnel. There's an official Ferrari name for the color that I believe translates to: guaranteed sex. Hey, it works better than expensive after shave for Silicon Valley geeks with stock options.