What If Ferrari Quit Formula 1 And Decided To Go Rallying Instead?

Every couple of years or so, Ferrari makes extravagant threats that it’s going to quit Formula One. They’ll start a rival spin-off series, they say. Or they’ll concentrate all their energies on an endurance-racing program at Le Mans. But what if they did something entirely different? What if the Prancing Horse marque went rallying instead?

The vehicle they’d cook up would probably look a little something like this. It’s a hupothetical Ferrari WRC car, rendered by budding Korean designer Taekang Lee, who based his design on the Ferrari hatchback he had released earlier and upgraded it to rally spec.

Outlandish as it may seem, it wouldn’t be the first time that Maranello would be represented on the rally scene. The 308 went rallying back in the 1970s and ’80s. Plus, the 288 GTO (essentially the precursor to the F40) might have as well had the Group B it was designed for not been scrapped by the FIA. And that’s not counting all the road cars it entered in cross-country road rallies like the Targa Florio and Mille Miglia.

This would be something else altogether, though: a modern rally machine closer (in concept at least) to the kind of amped-up hatchbacks currently competing in the World Rally Championship, like the Ford Fiesta, Hyundai i20, Toyota Yaris and Citroën C3. And as such, it will remain just a rendering. Which, we believe, is a good thing.