You could easily mistake this thing for a Pontiac Fiero playing dress-up, but nope, it’s the real deal
1 hour ago
- The Italian supercar appears to be rocking a rear wing from Koenig.
- Painting the original wheels, roof, and pillars was not a good idea.
- A search of the 512’s license plate confirms it’s a Ferrari, not a replica.
Some cars wear their age like a badge of honor. The Ferrari 512 TR, especially with its Pininfarina-designed roots tracing back to the Testarossa, is one of those machines that earned its status the hard way, through sheer presence and performance. So naturally, someone looked at this design icon and thought, “What if I gave it the flavor of a kit car from a used lot in Florida?”
The result is a very expensive Ferrari that now resembles a Pontiac Fiero or a Toyota MR2-based replica, depending on how charitable you’re feeling.
Read: Ferrari Testarossa Goes Up In Flames In California
A pair of photos of the wacky 512 TR were recently shared on Reddit and show just how easy it is to ruin the design of a classic supercar with only a few questionable modifications. Perhaps the first thing that makes this 512 TR look cheap is the wheels. While they appear to be the original ones, they’re no longer silver like most other 512 TRs, and have been resprayed black. Black wheels can look nice on some cars, but this is one of them.
Things only get more confused from there. The entire upper section of the car, including the pillars, roof, rear buttresses, and engine cover, has also been painted black, breaking up the car’s proportions in a less-than-flattering way. Then there’s the fixed rear wing. It’s large, it’s unapologetically aftermarket, and it appears to have been sourced from Koenig’s parts catalog. Koenig was best known in the 1980s and early ’90s for its outrageous widebody kits and over-the-top tunes.
However, of all the alterations made to the Ferrari, it is the new door skins and side air intakes that look the worst. Like the original Testarossa, the 512 TR is famed for having five horizontal strakes running along each door. This supercar has none. Instead, it opts for smoother doors and air intakes that have been resprayed in black.
These changes have led more than a few of the first Reddit commenters to wonder if the car is even real. It looks, at first glance, like an especially ambitious replica.
As it turns out, it’s not a fake. As a few commenters discovered, a quick license plate search confirms this is indeed a 1992 Ferrari 512 TR registered in Italy. The original 4.9-liter flat-12 engine is still in place, which means that while it may now look like a confused knockoff, it still goes like a real Ferrari should.
Which might just be the most frustrating part. Beneath the visual chaos, there’s still an Italian supercar legend trying to be heard.
