A Ferrari 512 BBi Is A Car To Drift On Track

Story and Photography by Davide Cironi

I’m in love with this lady in black. I can’t stop staring at her, in the early morning light. We arrived here with a red Ferrari Testarossa—and a dark sided, bad eyed, mean sounding 512 BBi.

I took the BBi out at dawn, from a hidden workshop on the outskirts of Turin, Italy. Sharing the space with the ‘Boxer’ was a Lamborghini Countach QV, Porsche 959, and Jaguar E-type—all seductive in their own way. One of the owners here is an ex-Lancia mechanic, and part of Pininfarina’s project for Jim Glickenhaus—in other words, he used his talent to help create the insane Ferrari P4/5 by Pininfarina.

The others may be distractions, but I can only focus on this black beauty. Both my first and current car wear black paint with a cream interior—this could totally be my Ferrari, and we’d live happily ever after.

Now: supercars have engines. This wedge on wheels has a mid-mounted flat twelve, and it sounds off like no other. It is not a V12, it is not a Boxer—a difference hard to understand if you don’t feel it up your spine. Sound is different, different from any other attribute a supercar like this can share.