Let's start with the heart: the Ferrari 812 Superfast's naturally aspirated 6.5-litre V12 engine.

Opening the long lightweight bonnet reveals perhaps the most beautifully presented engine bay on the market, designed to within an inch of its life, and dominated by the bright red plenum chambers that sit above a new super high pressure (350 bar) direct fuel injection system.

The nose is impossibly low when you see the massive V12 on display outside the car. In situ, it is pushed a long way back, sitting behind the front axle line for better weight distribution. It can spin to 8900 rpm, developing 588 kW (800 metric horsepower) and a torque figure of 718 Nm along the way. This will push the car to 100 km/h in 2.9 seconds and to 200 in 7.9.

With its front-engined layout, however, the 812 is not designed to be an extreme supercar, though it will outpace many that are. The design intent is a powerful tourer, in the traditional GT mode. This is reinforced by it having a roomy cabin, a decent sized boot and a slightly retro shelf behind the passengers, with buckled leather straps to hold a couple of suitcases in place as you, presumably, charge from Paris to St Tropez via the scenic route.

Although its basis is clearly the F12berlinetta it supersedes, the 812 Superfast has been heavily reworked inside and out. It has much more aggressive styling with complex new air management underneath, and even through, the bodywork. Ferrari claims this as necessary to maintain stability at the raised top speed of 340 km/h.

It's big for a two-seater – 4.66 metres long and nearly 2 metres wide – and weighs 1630 kg.

Chassis improvements include a new electronic steering system up front, and rear steering controlled by actuators on each wheel. These can move the wheels a bit over two degrees in either direction, turning in-phase with the front wheels at speed, and in the opposite direction during low speed manoeuvring.

The drive program for the international launch was through the Apennine Mountains, starting and finishing at the company's Fiorano test track. Whoever set the route clearly had huge confidence in the ride quality. There were some smooth roads, and some delightfully flowing ones, but there were even more fiendishly bumpy, narrow and at time broken surfaces.

"This is where we test our cars," explained a Ferrari apparatchik. "These roads are worse than just about anywhere."

Maybe that's why the ride in Sport, which is the base setting on this car (none of your wimpy comfort settings here), is surprisingly good even at high speeds on such bad roads. When moved to Race mode, the magnetically controlled adaptive suspension is noticeably harsher, but not insufferable.

In keeping with its statistics, the power delivered by the V12 is mighty and linear. It is almost certainly the most powerful naturally aspirated road engine I've driven - and the most powerful engine Ferrari has ever put in the front of a road car - yet it happily filled the role of mild mannered city cruiser and fires-of-hell open road car. It provided a reminder why some Ferrari owners buy only V12s, and why the company is reluctant to follow those who have added turbochargers to their twelve-cylinder models.

There is always speculation that the next set of emissions standards will be the end of the show, but Corrado Iotti, who is in charge of the powertrain design, told Drive there is no discussion about discontinuing the V12, because it is "our history". He said keeping naturally aspirated know-how alive also helps with the company's smaller turbo engines because the initial power they deliver is from the naturally aspirated system before the turbo cuts in.

Is 800 horsepower the limit? "Some years ago," said Iotti, "I would have thought no more than 750 horsepower, but today we are already at 800. Every time we need to gain something we understand how to do it and we see that we can. We can go on for sure with the V12 and we definitely want to do it."

If that's true, considering the lead times of new models, there must already be prototype engines out there with even more power.

The interior of our car had bright yellow highlights through the dark leather of the dashboard, seats and other areas, mirroring the equally bright yellow exterior colour. That paint colour is known as Extracampionario, according to the detailed plaque now fitted to all Ferraris. This lists every single feature and option fitted at the factory, with one eye on the future collectable market.

The hero exterior colour with the new model (which, by the way, borrows a historic Ferrari name going back to the 500 Superfast of 1964) is a new multi-layer red known as Rosso 70Anni, developed to celebrate the company's 70th anniversary (1947-2017).

For all the engine power, the stability was just as impressive. The new electronic steering system is superb, providing feedback and accuracy just as elevated as the company's previous hydraulic system, with the other advantages of going electronic, including improved efficiency and the ability to incorporate other functions. The steering now provides, for example, gentle feedback to the driver when counter steering is required.

The rear steering is completely unobtrusive yet, combined with new wider rubber and a revised suspension system, gives front-end grip that is simply revelatory for a front-engined car. We simply weren't able to produce understeer, even in a later brief stint on the racetrack.

Also improved is the seven-speed dual clutch transmission, which can change gears up to 40 per cent more quickly than before. The ratios have been shorted by about 6 per cent to exploit the V12's higher rev capability. This box almost spookily seems to know exactly what you want. It is so good at choosing the right gear for the circumstances that, for anything less than ten-tenths driving, it is hard to come up with a reason to select manual (in auto you always have the opportunity to override if you do need suddenly need a lower gear, or want to save fuel by flicking up a cog or two).

When a red dear bolted out in front of us on a fast and bumpy downhill section of the road course, it provided the perfect chance to try the massive, standard issue ceramic disc rotors. The car pulled up dramatically and entirely straight, and no animals were injured in the braking of this Ferrari.

A second test came when a 1980s Fiat Panda with a goat in the back casually merged from a slip road at approximately one fifteenth our speed. An armed Italian police officer had a role too in making the drive eventful, demanding to see our registration papers and licences, and to be allowed to sit in the "bella auto" and post a Facebook shot. It was another reminder that there is no car in the world that has the standing of Ferrari in Italy.

So where's the downside? Not everyone is going to prefer the more aggro styling to that of the elegant F12Berlinetta. And although consumption and emissions have improved, they are still right at the top end for road cars. The official figures are 14.9L/100 km and 340g/km, but you aren't going to get anything like that if you drive it like it was designed to be driven. Which is to say, like a Ferrari.

In Australia, where the first deliveries will happen at the end of the year, the 812 is cheaper than the car it replaces, but hardly cheap. It is $610,000 plus on road costs. The reason given for the reduced price is that there is a more sparse equipment level than before, giving buyers more chance to tailor it to choice. Many of the features fitted to our test car, such as a multifunction touch screen in front of the passenger are likely to add greatly to the price.

2018 Ferrari 812 Superfast price and specification

Price: $610,000 (plus on-road costs)

Engine: 6.5-litre V12

Power: 588kW at  8500rpm

Torque: 718Nm at 7000rpm

Transmission: Seven-speed dual-clutch automatic, RWD

Fuel Use: 14.9L/100km

• For more information visit our Ferrari showroom