Sometimes, despite all the rich adjectives and clever metaphors in the English language, the verbiage of a little boy best describes a car. This red car is super fast. It is a Ferrari. Ergo, it is called the Ferrari 812 Superfast.
For its 70th birthday, Ferrari is once again resurrecting the Superfast name, first seen on the 4.9 Superfast that was the quickest car we tested in the 1950s. Then as now, Ferrari’s most powerful 12-cylinder engine resides in this new 812 Superfast, a hairier evolution of the extreme F12tdf introduced for 2016. Ferrari bored out its naturally aspirated 6.3-liter V-12 to 6.5 liters and fitted a new 5076-psi direct-injection system for just shy of 800 horsepower (the 8 in the name is a reference to the car’s 800 metric horsepower)?call it 789 in American. Equipped with the same variable-length intake runners that shorten and lengthen the intake tracts to maximize airflow, the new V-12 achieves that lofty power output at 8500 rpm, along with 530 lb-ft of torque at 7000 rpm. That equals the LaFerrari?s power and bests its 516 lb-ft. It also beats the F12tdf?s 769 ponies and 520 lb-ft. Lest a turbocharged 488GTB enter the debate, a full 80 percent of the Superfast’s torque is available at 3500 rpm. Ferrari claims a zero-to-62-mph time of 2.9 seconds, a top speed of 211 mph, and upon request will cite more figures no other front-engined production car could hope to match.

Software plays an even more significant role here than in the...