Clasping their aperitivi and thumping tables in bars throughout Milan, Turin and Rome, the Ferrari cognoscenti are in uproar.
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It is, in the eyes of many, an absolute outrage.
It was thought a joke, but no; a horrible nightmare, like when the beloved Azzurri failed to qualify for last year's World Cup. This terrible vision has a nation rubbing rosary beads and wringing its hands in disbelief.
For Ferrari is planning an SUV.
In 2022, Italy's most revered sports car maker will bow to commercial reality and follow the likes of Porsche, Maserati, Bentley, Rolls-Royce, Lamborghini and most recently Aston Martin into the Sport Utility Vehicle market.
The high-riding Ferrari four-door wagon is code-named Purosangue, Italian for thoroughbred, as befits the famous prancing horse stable.
And despite the consternation of the Italian masses, this long-range announcement not only allows time for Ferrari to "condition" its ultra-luxury target market but refine the technology and performance needed to make the Purosangue the elitist choice in this price stratosphere. As with any new trend there are benefits to both jumping early and arriving conspicuously late.
The Range Rover could be regarded as the origin of the species for it emerged way back in 1970, before the idea of a luxury SUV was even conceived.
Originally with just two doors and a split tailgate, the aristocratic four-wheel drive Brit evolved over time and shrugged off its modest beginnings.
It was the US market which embraced the SUV concept early, building utilitarian wagons atop ladder-type pick-up truck chassis. However, anyone who has seen the Cadillac Escalade would agree that it was the Europeans who elevated the concept and gave it some much-needed class.
So much so, in fact, that the luxury SUV is now preferably branded a crossover, bridging the great divide between the old-fashioned wagon, the four-wheel drive, and the south end of a north-bound hatchback.
In 1992, BMW saw so much US sales potential in its first luxury SUV, the X5, that it decided the factory to build them would be best located in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
Mercedes-Benz followed suit in Tuscaloosa,
Alabama, for its luxury M-Class wagon.
The super-luxury brands held out for a time, but were soon swept up in the SUV tsunami.
As the Purosangue example proved, in the fiercely commercial car-making business, where the market current flows is where the money inevitably goes.
The Ferrari announcement aside, there's even more shock in finally coming face-to-glass with a Rolls-Royce Cullinan, an SUV the size of a corvette and with so much sheet metal that it looks armour clad.
Imposing? Well, yes, because that's the design intent. Where these brands have traditionally flagged fiscal success, in a solidly almost-regal British manner, an SUV adds a new dimension: lifestyle.
These super-luxury, all-wheel drive cars much better suit a family and the well-heeled who have outdoors-ish aspirations.
Aston Martin's new DBX, for example, offers an optional pet package with a portable washer and a comfy cargo bay dog bed while its snow package has plug-in boot warmers for the end of that no-chains-required drive to the skifields.
Rolls-Royce and Bentley could be seen as having an advantage in creating their SUVs because, after all, their existing cars are already of, ahem, significant proportions.
A little swelling here and there almost goes unnoticed. Almost.
To suggest there's all pretence and no substance about a Cullinan or Bentayga when the bitumen turns to gravel is incorrect.
These are mildly capable all-wheel drive vehicles with an off-road button to raise the ride height and engage all manner of electronic traction-sharing trickery making, as Rolls-Royce proudly claims "millions of calculations per second" to help propel you up that next sand hill.
Weight (around 2.6 tonnes) and road-treaded tyres are the most significant compromises of these alternative aristocrats.
And, of course, a wide-eyed concern for keeping the very expensive aluminium panels and five-layered paintwork unblemished and intact, as befits proper concern for a minimum $685,000 investment.
Should one exceeds oneself's capabilities while off-road driving, then the Cullinan is a very nice place to wait for the recovery truck, with champagne on the chill and cooling fans deep within the club-lounge leather armchairs.
Rolls-Royce and Bentley have long since parted ways commercially but both share similar and recent SUV success stories.
Rolls-Royce, in fact, can't build Cullinans fast enough to keep up with international demand.
For a company which a decade ago struggled to sell 1000 cars a year, it's now building four times as many - and most of them are its big SUV.
It's the same story at Lamborghini. After the public's initial shock at the raging bull appearing to lose vital parts of its vehicular anatomy, Urus sales have charged ahead.
At a starting price of $390,000, the Urus is more user friendly and practical than any raw-breathing sports Lambo which has gone before it. Except, perhaps, the tractors for which the company was once famous.
Audi, which bought Lamborghini nine years ago, must be properly chuffed. The Urus SUV is the company's best-selling model, with waiting lists growing in the world's two largest car markets, the US and China.
Once Ferrari enters the fold, the SUV phenomena will have blanketed the world's prestige car brands and created irresistible sales numbers.
Whether a lifestyle choice or not, it's a market trend which is already swallowing the wagon and perhaps, one day, will engulf the sedan.