Ferrari 296 GTS: one of the most compelling sports cars to exist

There are cars you are loaned for a long weekend, and there are cars that commandeer the entire narrative of your life for 96 hours straight. The Ferrari 296 GTS – particularly when finished in a shade of yellow as unapologetically radiant as “Giallo Triplo Strato” – falls firmly into the latter category.

This isn’t just yellow. This is egg-yolk-at-golden-hour, triple-layer, pearlescent drama. The sort of paint that doesn’t so much catch the light as flirt with it. Ferrari calls it “triple coat”. We call it “main character energy”. And over the Easter bank holiday, as Britain tentatively remembered what sunshine looked like, this particular 296 GTS became less a car and more a moving event.

Southbound to the English Riviera

Our plan was simple: escape London, point south and let the car dictate the mood. Destination? The English Riviera – specifically, Torquay – with a detour via ferry to Dartmouth for a rendezvous with steam trains and a touch of Agatha Christie nostalgia. Culture, darling – but make it fast.

Let’s address the obvious: the 296 GTS is a looker. Roof up, it’s elegant. Roof down, it’s borderline indecent. The proportions are tight, sculpted and impossibly balanced – all hips and haunches, with a rear end that deserves its own lighting designer.

In Giallo Triplo Strato, though, it becomes something else entirely. People don’t just notice it – they react. Heads turn. Conversations pause. Dogs, possibly, reconsider their life choices. It’s a colour and a car that refuses anonymity and, frankly, why would you want it to? I have dozens of new friends who stopped to chat.

Inside the cockpit

Inside, Ferrari has embraced a kind of tech-luxe minimalism. Digital screens are at the end of your nose (for driver and passenger), controls glow subtly (on our car buttons were back, haptics deleted) and the whole cabin feels like a cockpit designed by someone who understands both speed and theatre. It’s intimate, driver-focused and just the right side of futuristic without feeling like you need an IT degree to turn on the radio. Not that I did – there was a better soundtrack behind my head.

Now, the bit that matters. Beneath that sculpted body sits a 663bhp twin-turbo V6 paired with an 167bhp electric motor, producing a frankly indecent 830bhp in total. On paper, it’s clever. On the road, it’s a bit naughty, in the best way possible.

Around town, you can glide silently on electric power alone – a surreal experience in something that looks like it should announce itself three streets in advance. It’s oddly civilised, almost polite. But try harder, wake the V6 and the 296 GTS transforms.

How is the Ferrari 296 GTS to drive?

The acceleration is instant, relentless and delivered with a sharpness that makes your internal organs briefly reconsider their alignment. It’s not just fast – it’s alive, constantly communicating, constantly urging you on, Officer.

And the sound? Purists may mourn the absence of a V8 but honestly, they need to get out more. This V6 sings – a high-pitched, urgent, almost operatic note that builds and builds until you realise you’re grinning like an idiot.

The run down to Torquay is a greatest hits album of British driving: motorways, sweeping A-roads, tight B-road surprises. In lesser cars, it’s a means to an end. In the 296 GTS, it’s the entire point.

Roof down, sun out (a minor miracle), the Ferrari turns even the M25 into something vaguely cinematic. But it’s when the roads open up – when Devon starts to undulate and twist – that the car truly comes into its own.

Steering is razor-sharp, yet never nervous. The chassis feels telepathic. You think about a corner and the car has committed. Grip is immense, but there’s a playfulness beneath it – a sense that, if you’re feeling brave (or foolish), there’s more to explore.

It’s intoxicating. Addictive, even. The sort of driving experience that makes you take the long way round, then the longer way, then briefly consider moving house.

The journey

From Torquay, we hopped across to Dartmouth – the ferry providing a moment of calm amid the Ferrari’s constant sense of occasion. Parked among sensible hatchbacks and practical SUVs, the 296 GTS looked like it had wandered on to the wrong film set – and it wasn’t bothered.

Dartmouth, with its pastel houses and maritime charm, is quintessentially English. Add in a steam train chugging through the countryside – very Agatha Christie, per her home locale – and you have a scene that feels too curated to be real.

And yet, there we were. A cutting-edge hybrid Ferrari, in the brightest yellow imaginable, idling beside a relic of a slower, more deliberate age. Old world meets new world. Steam meets electric boost. It shouldn’t work, yet it absolutely does.

Ferrari 296 GTS is quite simply one of the most compelling sports cars to exist

Back behind the wheel, roof down once more, it becomes clear: there’s no mystery to solve here. No need to overthink it.

The Ferrari 296 GTS is quite simply one of the most compelling sports cars that exists. It blends electrification with emotion, performance with precision and manages to feel both cutting-edge and utterly, gloriously indulgent.

Is it practical? Not especially. Is it subtle? Absolutely not. But it is an event.

It turned a straightforward trip into something memorable, something just a little bit ridiculous. And in a world increasingly obsessed with restraint and responsibility, there’s something deeply refreshing about a car that leans the other way, a car that makes an entrance, is seen, is heard.

Vital statistics

830bhp// 545lb/ft // 0-60mph in 2.8 seconds // 205mph // 205g/km // £280,033

For more information about the Ferrari 296 GTS, please visit Ferrari’s official website.

This is a feature appearing in the May/June 2026 issue of Attitude magazine.