Ferrari is owning up to its mistake of swapping physical controls with capacitive touch-sensitive ones. But not only are they admitting that they were wrong – they’re now also offering owners of the Purosangue and 12Cilindri an option to revert to physical buttons on their steering wheel.
It’s not surprising to find out that Ferrari owners hated the capacitive touchpads, so much so that they returned to physical buttons on the Ferrari Amalfi last year. And now, the Italian supercar maker is offering the same upgrade to two of its existing models according to Ferrari of Atlanta, who published photos of the “mod” on its Instagram page.
Details for the upgrade are scarce, and we presume it’s something that owners will have to pay for. But based on the images, it appears that the actual change here is just the control surface module in the middle, rather than the entire steering wheel itself. Only thing missing here is the big red physical push-start button – but I guess you win some, you lose some.
You’ll have to go to an authorised Ferrari dealership for the upgrade, as there’s probably some software calibration that can only be done using Ferrari’s computers. But given that it’s just a part swap rather than a steering wheel replacement, it’s possible the upgrade can also be brought to other Ferrari cars as well, including the SF90 and 296 models.
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Ferrari, of course, aren’t the first to revert back to physical buttons in their cabins. Volkswagen famously swapped the touch-sensitive controls on the Golf with physical buttons when they debuted the Mk8.5 facelift and has stuck with them ever since, while Mercedes-Benz has also reintroduced physical controls on the steering wheel of the all-new GLC.
Perhaps Euro NCAP’s threats had something to do with it, but seeing a carmaker – and an ultra exclusive one at that – actually offering a solution to right their wrong? Well, that’s certainly refreshing.
[H/T: CarBuzz]
