The Ferrari Testarossa is back: here's every ‘red-head’ you need to know about

The Ferrari 849 Testarossa is a very complex, serious and accomplished Ferrari supercar. It builds on the game-changing SF90 (which it replaces) by adding more power and chassis witchcraft and technical black magic into the mix.

The Ferrari 849 Testarossa is also a Ferrari with a bloody cool name. You’ll know that it literally translates as ‘red-head’ in Italian (another note from the book of Everything Sounds Better In Italian), dating back to its first use on 1956’s Ferrari 500 TR.

Back in those days, Ferrari used ‘Testa Rossa’ as a way of singling out its “most extreme, high-performance and iconic racing engines” – ones that had red cam covers. It became a full-blooded Ferrari supercar after, and now returns as a very full-blooded crown atop Maranello’s road car range.

So, want to see every iteration of the ‘Testa Rossa’? Step this way.

Back in the Fifties, Ferrari apparently needed “a new special weapon” with which to battle Maserati’s 4cyl. So it took the 2.2-litre from the Mondial and handed it over to a former Maser engineer who turned it into a 2.0-litre four-pot with 177hp. This engineer – Massimino – painted the cam covers on this four-pot red, because red equals veloce.

Scaglietti did the coachwork for the original 500 TR, and “the more shapely second version”, this 500 TRC. Same engine, same power, and tweaked over the TR to race to new 1957 regs (that’s the ‘C’ in ‘TRC’). Run exclusively by Ferrari clients. Took class wins at Sebring and a place called ‘Le Mans’.

Ooft. Now we’re cooking. Back in Ye Olde Days, Ferrari was all race first, ask questions later. The 250 TR was built to give clients more power (and conform to the FIA’s then 3.0-litre engine limit). Enter the “reliable” V12 from the 250 GT, here treated to twin-choke carbs and a shade under 300bhp. Ferrari painted the cam covers rosso, of course, and this red-head won the 1958 manufacturers’ world championship. And your heart, probably.

Did you know Ferrari built a one-off 330 dubbed the ‘TRI’ – the ‘I’ referring to its independent rear suspension – and gave it to Phil Hill and Olivier Gendebien to race at Le Mans? Well, now you do. They won, by the way, making this the last front-engined Ferrari to win the classic 24hr. And what an engine: a single-cam 4.0-litre V12 with 390bhp.

Think Testarossa and your mind won’t naturally fall upon beardy wonders like the 500 and 250 and 330 – cool as they are. You’ll think of shoulder pads and Wall Street and Al Pacino driving one blind around New York, because this 1984 car is the Testarossa. 

After all, it is literally called Testarossa, it was the heir to the 512BBi, and featured a Pininfarina design with those now famous side strakes, wedge shape, and the small matter of a massive 4.9-litre V12 kicking out 385bhp.

This 1991 facelift of the original car brought in a HUGELY CONTROVERSIAL* change. Yes, it looked pretty much as before - Pininfarina designs tend to age quite nicely - and while it offered more comfort and better aero and a smidge more power from that V12 (422bhp) versus the original, there was uproar: the new Testarossa featured TWO wing mirrors!

*actually not that controversial, turns out two mirrors are quite handy
**actually the opposite of uproar. Downroar?

Another evoluzione of the original 1984 recipe, this final boss version of the Testarossa got a new face to better match the-then new F355, with yet another hugely vexatious* amendment: fixed headlights instead of pop-ups! Yes, it's still a classic Pininfarina shape and all the cues are there - along with more power, now up to 435bhp - but a Testarossa isn't a Testarossa unless the lights wink. That's just facts.

*possibly not vexatious in the slightest

And so we come to the return of one of Ferrari’s most famous badges. Taking over duties from the SF90, the new TR gets more power, more tech, and more… face. And it has much to pout about, because it’s the new king of the Maranello hill, complete with a 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8, three-electric motors and a whopping 1,036bhp at its disposal.