The Ferrari Testarossa was a 23-year-long mistake — ISSIMI Spotlight feat. Jason Cammisa — Ep. 06

It's time for the Testarossa, but this episode isn't just about the Testarossa, it's about a 23-

year

-

long

mid-engine error that resulted from Enzo following a fad in which the media completely misunderstood what makes a big sports car and a group of television police officers on a Miami television. show how to make this car something it never was just because something is a

mistake

doesn't mean it's not brilliant it's a matter of perspective take for example the post it note this was a

mistake

a real mistake there was a scientist in 3m and he was working on a super glue and he invented something that barely holds two pieces of paper together, it sucked as super glue but he invented something amazing.

This is the same story with the Testarossa. It's not what you think, but it's amazing. What it really is, it was the wonderful 1960s and times were changing, suddenly everyone was rushing to put it in the middle, the engine, put it in the engine, put the engine in the middle, like the Lamborghini Miura, Contrary to popular tradition, Ferrari did not. In fact, their mid-engined v6 Dino went into production the same

year

as the Lamborghini Miura, just a year later we saw Ferrari's last front-engined v12 GT, the Daytona, from the moment the Daytona went on sale. Ferrari must have been working on their mid-engine v6. -Replacement of the engine because only three years later it was ready to be shown to the world.

Ferrari called it the 365 GT 4 BB and gave us all a BS line that BB stood for Berlin in a boxer, it didn't at all and here's why the car was a Berlinetta or a coupe, but it didn't have a boxer engine. A boxer engine is defined as a horizontally opposed engine whose pairs of opposing pistons do this like a boxer. You understand, the pistons in this car do this and it's because it's not a boxer, it's actually a v12 this is the Daytona's v12, but with its 60 degree v extended to 180, making it the first and only 12 plane or horizontally opposite of the world, but he is not a boxer.

BB were Brigitte's initials and nickname. The engineers and designers at Bardot and Horndog named the beautiful and voluptuous car after the beautiful and voluptuous actress because you can't officially name a car after someone, at least without her permission. Ferrari's press department gave a silly explanation of BB and hence the name berlinetta boxer. It was born for a berlinetta that didn't have a boxer engine, it may have been beautiful, but the magazines brutalized the BB, okay, you understand, it's too hot in the cabin, the petals are too narrow for my Gucci loafers, the clutch hurts my leg, It's absolutely huge the only good thing about it is the way it looks it may be the fastest car in the world but I don't care because I can't reach the top of the steering wheel and the best editor in chief I hate it if I wanted something useless for a hundred grand, would buy a lot of congressmen.

Oh, that's really good, but it's completely wrong. Clearly, not a single person on staff had driven a Lamborghini Miura recently because the BB is as comfortable and relaxing as a massage parlor in comparison. to that thing and clearly none of them realized that someone who bought a sports car that costs as much as a house probably had another car to pick up the dry cleaning or, more likely, had staff to do that, hey, redneck , get my shirt back, the BB. In fact, it did the Ferrari thing very well, it sounded incredible, it was one of the fastest cars in the world and it was truly an experience to drive.

Here's the thing, it was super glue when the magazine guys wanted a post-it note, in other words, they expected a comfortable fine GT. Enzo had already told the US markets the safety and fuel economy standards and never sold the BB here in any form, so he sent the engineers back to work to turn the BB into a working GT for the US and that Surprisingly, all the complaints about the BB being huge they stopped even though the Testarossa had a two-inch wheelbase and was six inches wider, to put that in perspective, the difference in width between the smallest Mercedes sedan, the A-class, and the largest.

Mercedes s class sedan is only four inches

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and by the way, that width wasn't added for beauty reasons, it was to move the radiators back so the heat from the engine doesn't heat up the cabin while I'm sitting in traffic. recognizable part of the Testarossa it wasn't actually supposed to be a style statement the strikes were a concession to us safety regulations you can't just have a big opening without a grill otherwise pedestrians and their poodles could get sucked in no a lot about the Testarossa sucked although the magazines loved it with radiators in the back there was now room for a big trunk in the front it was easy to drive it was a great thing to go fast and fast the Testarossa used the same basic flat 12 engine but with four valve heads to help but make up for the power it lost getting clean emissions as the BB launched to 60 in five seconds flat it did one hundred and eighty one miles per hour it got heroic numbers on the skidpad it was one of the cars with the best performance on the planet.

Everyone always asks me: Does the Testarossa really drive that badly? No, in any case, the Testa Rossa drives too well. All that great performance comes without any drama. It turns out that the car was once described as the reddest car in the world. It's also one of the best luxury cars in the world and that's not a mistake that was intended in Cars' debut. Ferraris managing director called it 300 kilometers in our living room which is absurd, I mean whose living room smells like that? About all that post-it note stuff, the only problem with the Testarossa is that the picture of the car says fun car, but it's not a fun car, it's just fast if you judge a post-it note glue by its ability to stick together. someone's fingers.

It sucks, but that's not the right thing to do. One thing to remember about Enzo Ferrari is that he didn't drive his sports cars, he drove the big comfortable GTS that we never put on our bedroom walls and there is a reason Enzo was in his 50s when the first road cars appeared. Ferrari was 75 when the BB came out and the guy was 86 when the testa Rossa happened. Do you really think an 86 year old wants to drive a fucking Lotus Elise? No, he wants it. a Mercedes SL competitor with a Ferrari badge, which meant it had to be beautiful, comfortable and very fast.

One look at the Testarossa's design and you know it was never intended to be a sports car, a good example of the benefits of a flat engine. is that it can be mounted low to aid handling giving the car a very low center of gravity. Ferrari mounted the Flat 12 completely on top of the transmission very high, it is not a sports car due to its appearance and Miami Vice, the Testarossa became the model of the model. The cocaine culture of the '80s, which is a little ironic because it would have taken a lot of cocaine to make a Testarossa fun, seems like cocaine drives like valium, which is not what you expect, but that doesn't mean It's something bad, you know what?

Never mind, Ferrari sold them by the boatload, the Testarossa was the image perfect car, you had to look like a player, drive one of the fastest cars in the world and you didn't have to compromise on comfort and then in 1991 the Testarossa he got revenge. better when it was replaced by the 512 TR it looks identical until you look at it up close basically everything was revised the engine was mounted an inch lower got new fuel injection new clutch new shift mechanism new steering new brakes new suspension and a new chassis stiffer, the largest wheels on any production car of all time and new roofline for better aerodynamics, the 512 TR brought the Testarossa back halfway to where the original BB was by adding some excitement and some that sharpness that had been extracted for the Testarossa and done so without the compromises of a small trunk in a cabin oven and that is one of the reasons why the TR and BB are worth a fortune and the regular Testarossa is worth a fortune a little less.

People will always pay more for a really Good time, people also pay a lot for the 512m, the latest version of the Flat 12 GT, but I can't really look at one without doing it anyway, shortly after Enzo's death, Ferrari was acquired by a man called Luca di Montezemolo who was at some point Enzo was even better than Enzo. Montezemolo realized that there had to be two completely different types of Ferraris, on the one hand, the fun cars and these are the fast and loud mid-engined sports cars and then the old cars and these are the comfortable ones and do not compromise on the fast GTS Montezemolo, first order of business, shored up the mid-engined V-8 sports car for cocaine fiends, then put the V12 back in front for Valium poppers, so it replaced the 512 with the 550 Maranello, which he returned to the front. -v12 engine was quieter smoother faster easier to drive had more storage space smaller on the outside bigger on the inside and that's where we are today Ferrari doesn't make a mid-engine v12 because they realize it's too hard to pack a v12 in the middle of a car that needs to be usable quiet and comfortable now when Ferrari puts a 12 cylinder in the middle it is for extreme cars that are allowed to have a laser focus on performance the f50 the Enzo the la

ferrari

the BB&T our lineage was a 23 year long attempt to get a mid-engined 12 cylinder GT going and Montezemolo realizes that maybe Enzo shouldn't have given in to the pressure of the 60's from Lamborghini and Lotus and everyone else, an engine in the middle of their GT cars, so in that way these mid-12 cylinder engine cars were really just a 23 year old fun or even a mistake, but don't forget that sometimes the best comes from a mistake, don't believe me, try making a sticky note with JB solder.