Online car configurators are right up there with butt crack-cooling seat fans as one of the greatest things about the current automotive world that weren’t available to our grandpa’s generation.
Speccing a car in the 1950s probably involved looking at a few pages of a flimsy brochure containing whimsical illustrations of said vehicle, then scanning an impenetrable spreadsheet of option part codes and ticking the ones you wanted, all the while being steering by a pushy salesman looming over your shoulder. If car configurators had been around based on the technology of the day they would have been machines the size of a Transit van that sounded like a steam tractor and delivered you a card with six holes in it to take to your dealer.
But now The Little Car Company has come up with an online car configurator for its gorgeous Ferrari Testarossa J that lets us imagine what it would have been like if configurators had been around in the 1950s using 21st century tech.
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You get to choose from 28 solid colors or 12 personalizable combinations of base color and central stripe, plus you can pick your own leather and piping colors, unless you’ve opted for one of the 14 historic race liveries, which are done-for-you combos. If you want to change the leather on of those you need to go through Ferrari’s Atelier program, just like a real Ferrari buyer. Other options include door roundels and race numbers, and a wheel upgrade from the basic spoked rims to proper Borranni wires.
The Testarossa J’s single motor makes 12 kW (16 hp / 16 PS) in standard guise and gives a top speed of 50 mph (80 kmh) in Race mode, though Novice mode limits power to 1 kW (1.3 hp / 1.3 PS) and the top speed to 15 mph (24 kmh) to let kids play safely. For adults wanting a bigger kick the optional Pacco Gara package bumps power to 14 kW (19 hp / 19 kW), adds a detachable roll cage, race harness, period spotlights, adjustable dampers, drilled rotors and a quicker steering rack.
The aluminium body was created by scaling down to 75 percent measurements taken from real Testarossa blueprints, and being a genuine Ferrari-endorsed product it gets to wear a real Ferrari badge – and comes with a Ferrari-sized price. That price isn’t revealed during the configuration process, but bank on spending – or pretending to spend – a minimum of $100,000 to bag one of the 299 build slots. You can build your own Testarossa J by clicking here.
