As a place to discover how the 1,900 horsepower Pininfarina Battista really drives, I can’t think of a worse one than Miami. Most of Florida is flat, crowded, and swampy. Spotless, wide tarmac that wriggles its way up a mountain only to tumble down the other side – there’s simply no such thing here. And you know what? I am fine with it. There’s no point in complaining or kicking the facts. I’m here to go with the flow and fully embrace the ways of Miami.
No, not by donning much-too-small Lycra clothes and gulping down Big Gulp cocktails (really, American tourists are fascinating). No, I’m going for a hint of the billionaire lifestyle. So for posing purposes, I’ve arranged a brand-new $7 million villa, complete with more marble than the Parthenon and a fridge-freezer that’s bigger than my first apartment. I’m wearing a party shirt that may not be very tasteful and have sunglasses glued to my face. The car is parked outside.
The Pininfarina Battista is the future of very, very fast things. It is the brother of the Rimac Nevera and has the same powertrain technology, the same electrical architecture and the same carbon fiber base. All this was adapted to Pininfarina’s specifications and wrapped in a body and interior designed by them. They are Italy’s most famous design house, with a portfolio that stretches back 91 years and includes legends like the Ferrari F40 and Cisitalia 202; but this is the first road car ever to bear the Pininfarina badge as a brand. And it is immediately the most powerful Italian car ever made.
The Pininfarina Battista is a beauty
Still, hanging out between the art-deco buildings of Ocean Drive and the murals of Wynwood is something the Pininfarina Battista does well. The Rimac Nevera is the embodiment of Mate Rimac’s intellect – an ode to technology in all its geeky glory – but Pininfarina prefers the luxury and design of yesteryear. Yes, there’s an outrageous excess of performance, but it’s all wrapped up in a carbon fiber case of classic beauty, with the world’s finest materials and so many customization options that each of the 150 builds will be completely unique. Someone from Pininfarina’s press department picked up a large calculator and figured out that “the total number of possible individual designs comes down to 13.9 trillion.” I don’t know exactly how much that is, because I don’t have enough fingers. But it’s a lot.
Did I mention this is an all-electric hyper GT? After you’ve paid 2 million euros for this graceful piece of carbon and lithium, you don’t have to go to a gas station for a second bloodletting. Simply top it up via the Residenza wallbox (designed by Pininfarina and finished in the color of your car) in your huge garage. Pininfarina claims a range of 500 kilometers if you act like you do on your driving test, which of course you won’t, thanks in part to a 120 kWh T-shaped battery that fills the car’s spine and curls to the side behind the seats.
No tricky pairing
Range doesn’t really worry us as we head a few miles out of the center, past the MacArthur Causeway and past a line of CO2-breaking cruise ships at Miami Beach, where we meander around roadworks and inebriated vacationers. Fortunately, it is completely easy to drive slowly with the Battista. If I’d been in a Porsche Carrera GT or McLaren F1, I’d have to worry about a hyper-sensitive clutch and mechanical parts with tight tolerances, but not here.
The chassis is not very indulgent, but comfortable enough for everyday use. The two single-speed transmissions (one on each axle), the friendly power pedal mapping in the quiet driving modes, the regenerative brakes (strong enough to only need one pedal in the city)… It’s like riding in a really low, very wide Tesla drive. And it’s pretty quiet, apart from the artificially generated soundtrack.
Yes, the Battista still makes noise
It is pumped out through two external speakers – one in the front and one in the rear – and through the twelve-speaker audio system. Also nice: the sound increases in steps of 54 hertz, because that’s a quotient of 432 hertz, which seems to be the purest frequency in the universe. Marketing blabla or something that really benefits the customer? You can decide that. What I can tell you is that it sounds… interesting, like the car is breathing, pulsing. Especially when you start it up in a garage and the bassy tones bounce off the walls. He’s not trying to imitate an internal combustion engine, but you might confuse his sound with it. Let’s just say it will be a rewarding topic for the polo club.
Open the butterfly doors, which lift some of the sills, and it turns out that you don’t have to be a half-gym athlete to get in. You slide in on the soft bolsters instead of plunging yourself into rock-hard, deep race-style seats. This is all part of the Battista’s intended appeal: it must be a serviceable GT first, then a pure rocket ship. The interior is simple – a trio of screens gathered around the driver. The smallest central display is attached to the steering column and shows your speed and the selected driving mode. The touchscreen on your left shows the charge status, explains what each driving mode means and lets you adjust the seat and steering wheel. You control the air conditioning and music on the screen on the right.
Plenty of exotic materials in the Pininfarina Battista
If you like blue suede seats, lots and lots of matte carbon fiber (coarse weave on the exposed fairing, finer on the interior parts) and diamond-stitched leather, you’ll love this one. The rule is clear: if you want to catch many millions for a car, take every opportunity to immerse it in rare and exotic materials. See also the outside of our test car. It is made of naked carbon, which undoubtedly costs a lot of money. Up close it is beautiful, from afar it looks more like a brownish black. We would celebrate our success with a brighter twist.
A pleasant place to be, therefore, and to move with at normal speeds, but you are in a constant battle of willpower not to run off at every opportunity. Because the performance is continuously present, a devil rides on your shoulder. With four motors, one for each wheel, you have unlimited torque distribution – the power can go directly to the wheel that needs it – and a combined power and torque of 1,900 hp and 2,300 Nm. Just for comparison: that is the pulling power of 2.4 LaFerrari’s. You go from 0 to 100 km/h in less than 2 seconds, 0 to 300 takes less than 12 seconds and the top speed is 350 km/h.
With the Pininfarina Battista on a NASCAR track
Time for part two of the millionaire fantasy: Homestead Miami, a NASCARoval with some entertaining turns in the middle, all to ourselves. I don’t care about it: I point his nose to the end of the straight and step on the right pedal. Immediately I let out an involuntary yelp as the air is squeezed from my lungs and we shoot forward in a way I’ve never experienced before. With this kind of straight-ahead acceleration, a Taycan feels like a microcar. Then I look down and realize that the car is in Energica mode, not full-speed Furiosa mode, so I have 1,359 hp and 1,889 Nm at my disposal – just 71 percent of the full potential of the car. battista. Somewhere in my brain, a stop pops out.
About those driving modes: you can set them with a rotary knob in the door, near your left thigh. You can choose from Carattere (you can adjust all settings yourself), Calma (the quietest mode with a good 407 hp and 1,180 Nm), Pura (1,012 hp and 1,415 Nm), Energica and finally Furiosa (1,900 hp and 2,300). Nm, plus maximum torque distribution). That rear wing, which doubles as an air brake and automatically lifts at high speed, can generate up to 500 kilograms of downforce. “More than the weight of a full-grown polar bear,” Pininfarina said. We would have loved to have been there when they tested that claim.
Cold Pilot Sport Cup 2Rs on a wet track
Just as I’m about to put the car in Furiosa and prepare myself for severely bruised cervical vertebrae, it starts pouring and we retreat into the pits. I just wanted to mention this, because when we go back to the circuit later, the road surface is still damp. And that’s a pretty important detail when you’re going to unleash 1,900 horsepower on cold Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2Rs. If I press the pedal all the way down at any point, its tires will blow (there’s a standard 30/70 power split between the front and rear axles, before torque distribution or traction control comes into play) and the grip of the front wheels don’t keep momentum in check.
Hit the throttle again, er, power, and that pushing understeer promptly turns into power oversteer. There’s a lot going on. Yes, this may be one of the most technologically advanced cars ever, with a load of electronic assistants beyond comprehension, but 1,900 horsepower is still 1,900 horsepower. And there’s always an intimidation factor when four tepid contact patches of rubber try to bite themselves into a wet surface, causing about two tons of pounds to change direction.
The track is getting dry
But as the afternoon wears on and the track dries up, the Battista’s genius begins to reveal itself. The grip increases and I can press the pedal more often and further. It starts to bite when turning and launches itself out of the corners. You feel how the torque distribution rolls up its sleeves and the mass seems to disappear by itself. I whiz down the straight and hit the brakes hard (they’re monstrous, considering what they’re supposed to be able to slow down) and skim through the corner. It’s a wild and physically grueling ride, despite the Ferrari-esque, light but whiplash-fast steering and the absence of a clutch pedal. The beating comes from the g-forces, not from weighty operation.
It’s unimaginable that a car that weighs so much, that isn’t touted as a track weapon, which should be a lot more relaxed than the Rimac Nevera, can still be capable of this kind of untamed aggression. He resolutely devours the circuit in the midfield and leaves me breathless, yearning for more. I don’t think many Battista owners will sign up for track days, but I would recommend that they do so and experience the sky-high limits of their car. Do it on a sunny day and you don’t know where to stay.
The Pininfarina Battista obviously has no V12 sound
Of course, if you prefer an electric hypercar to one with a screeching V12, you lose on certain points: a lack of sound, a limited range, charging options that are not yet in order everywhere, not being able to play with paddle shifters when you want to. would like. But this kind of stratospheric pricing and performance is all about pumping adrenaline and creating an experience that will stay with you forever. It’s impossible to drive the Battista and not get caught up in the way it moves ahead warpt and control his weight. Mark my words: you will never get used to this sledgehammer blow-to-the-head performance, because the human body is simply not equipped for it.
And yet Pininfarina hits the mark: the Pininfarina Battista is beautiful inside and out, and if you can map out a series of fast chargers between your villa in Aerdenhout and your chalet in Courchevel, you can cover distances with the greatest of ease. Take it somewhere with plenty of room to play and it will shock and baffle you time and time again. It’s a car that makes us look forward to all the creative EV solutions to come. And it may not be a hard-fought category, but it is TopGears Hyper GT of the Year.
Thanks to Sotheby’s for loaning the villa for a morning.
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