Showing blog posts for Ferrari Testarossa

The Ferrari Testarossa: Miami Vice, Athena poster car, 1980’s bad taste…Microsoft Word clip art car. These are just a few answers you’d get if you were to ask the general public about the Testarossa. It’s one of those few cars in the world which is instantly recognizable. Is that a good thing? There some urban myths about these cars and hopefully my blogs can dispel some of them and also describe what it is really like to live with a Testarossa.

My love affair with J-Lo, my nickname for my Testarossa, began nearly 8 years ago. I had been bitten by the Testarossa bug in my late teens as my best friend, Keith, had a very early Testarossa, in the clichéd Rosso (resale) Red with crème interior. It had single knock on wheels and as a UK car had Michelin TRX metric tyres - more on tyres in a later blog. It was a single mirrored edition, which Keith had adjusted to be a little higher than normal. The car had so much presence to look at, it was incredible. Even as it was parked in his drive, it looked like it was going 200mph. I was hooked. At 19 years old, Keith threw me the keys and let me drive it. As you can imagine this was incredibly daunting; being almost 15 years ago, the car was worth more than some 2 bedroom flats in South London! A sturdy foot down on the clutch into the dog leg first, with a nice “clunk” that only Italian supercars have - I slowly pressed the throttle and away I went for a careful drive down the A3.

The car was just something I had never experienced before; the power was just out of this world for someone who at 19 years old had only driven a handful of “hot hatch” cars, namely my daily run which was a Lancia Y10 Turbo with a 200 bhp ex-RAC rally engine in. I thought that was fast, but the Testarossa was on a whole new level. The rev’s seemed to go on and on and the gear change was seamless. It was a very docile car low down, but once the noisy pedal was squeezed, 12 of Maranello’s opera singers, sung in perfect harmony. The half an hour drive was something I will never forget. From that moment onwards, I just HAD to have a Testarossa or at the very least a Ferrari. Like many I set myself a target of having one at 25. That would involve quite a drastic change of career as being a shelf stacker at a well known DIY chain wasn’t going to cut it. Time to set my sites on working harder and smarter!

Keith and I used to do lots of track days together, before they became a regular fixture. It was fantastic as I got to do lots of track time in the Testarossa and also in his Lamborghini Diablo. On track the Testarossa, is well, different. The power as mentioned is epic, so on the pit straight of Silverstone the car would eat up pretty much every car on track but preparing to turn into Copse Corner would require some advanced brake pedal usage. Leave it too late and you would end up in the kitty litter, which Keith and I did a couple of times. The brakes on the Testarossa were really not suited for track days. After 5 or 6 fast laps, the brakes would fade as the fluid would get very hot and rendered them useless. This was a real shame as the handling was surprisingly excellent. With its big bottom you would think it would handle worse than an early American V8, but you would be wrong. The pinpoint handling allowed you to go precisely where you wanted to go, with very minimal oversteer. You do have to keep on the throttle - if you let go mid corner at speed then mother nature would allow one of the biggest bottoms in the world to go the wrong way and you have to be very very quick to snatch it back. If you manage to you will look like a complete hero, but it doesn’t happen often. Except to me in front of a few thousand people at Dunsfold Park…

After spending more time on track I became very much “at one” with the Testarossa. I became very comfortable with the car in a “daily capacity”, even driving it in the stop-start of London traffic. Keith received a good offer on the car when I turned 24, so unfortunately my flirtation with the car ended, but I was determined to get my car at 25. It was still a tall order but I was working as much as I could, with fingers in every pie imaginable. I bored my friends to tears that I was going to have one. Maybe getting 6 numbers would be an easier option?

As darkness rolled in, the contrast between the backdrop of skyscrapers and the 1980s icon became more and more apparent and it was obvious why Dean had chosen this as the perfect location for a night shoot. We watched on as the minutes and then hours ticked by. The process was a slow and careful one, to get the perfect shot takes way more time and effort than I had realised. After re-positioning the Testarossa numerous times, which, incidentally seemed way more manoeuvrable than modern day supercars, three hours after we started, we were done and the results, well they speak for themselves:

We are going to be following Dean over the coming months to give you an insight into automotive photography, so if you like these pictures and are keen to find out more about how to get the perfect shot then please keep checking in to the blog. For more of Dean’s work, please visit www.deanphoto.co.uk.