There's a poster that hung on a lot of bedroom walls in the late '80s and early '90s, and for me it was a Testarossa. Mine wasn't even on a wall, though. It was on a TV screen. I first fell for this shape playing the original Need for Speed on PlayStation back in the mid-'90s, picking the Ferrari every single time, learning the lines of it before I ever understood what any of it meant. So when I rolled up to Bentley's Saloon in Arundel for their Tuesday night car show and saw a red 512TR sitting out front like it owned the place, I more or less stopped walking.
This is the car.
The wide hips, the strakes running down the doors, the flat nose with the prancing horse front and center. The 512TR is the evolution of the Testarossa, a sharper, faster, better-sorted version of the same idea. Ferrari introduced it in 1991 to replace the original Testarossa that had run since 1984, and it was more than a facelift. The flat-12 grew to a proper 4.9 liters making around 428 horsepower, the chassis got stiffer, the brakes got bigger, and the whole car was lowered and tightened up so it actually drove like the numbers suggested. Seeing one parked in front of a roadside saloon, with people leaning on the bar railing behind it and one guy in Mickey Mouse ears taking it all in, is exactly the kind of thing that makes these Tuesday shows worth the short drive from my place.
It's a local owner, and from what I gather he's got a deep bench of exotic and classic toys. You can tell when a car like this belongs to someone who actually drives and enjoys it rather than someone who only trailers it to concours lawns. It's got Maine antique plates on the back and it's sitting in a gravel-and-asphalt lot next to a powder-blue muscle car, which is about the most New England summer scene I can imagine.
Up close is where the 512TR earns its keep.
Those side strakes aren't just styling. They feed air to the radiators mounted behind the doors, which is why the whole back half of the car is so dramatically wide. The paint was deep and clean, the side glass reflecting the crowd milling around behind me. There's a tan interior peeking through that pairs beautifully with the red.
The first time I saw one of these in person was years after the PlayStation days. My dad and I were at New Hampshire International Speedway for an event that had nothing to do with NASCAR, and we got to walk out on the actual track. Sitting there was a yellow 512TR, and I remember standing over it the same way I'm standing over this red one now. Some shapes just don't let go of you.
From the rear it's all business. The full-width grille over the taillights, the 512TR script, and that prancing horse badge dead center. This is the angle most people remember, because it's the one you'd see disappearing down the road. The "512" refers to 5 liters and 12 cylinders, that flat-12 making north of 420 horsepower, which was serious money in the early '90s and is still plenty quick today.
I kept circling it. The three-quarter rear view shows off how the roofline tapers down into that wide tail, with the rest of the show's cars lined up colorfully in the background. It photographs as well as it did on the bedroom wall, which is not something you can say about every dream car once you finally see it in the metal.
The interior is its own reward. That gated shifter is the heart of it. Open the door and you get the classic Ferrari layout: the metal gate, the three-spoke wheel with the horse on the hub, the gauges set deep in the binnacle, and tan leather everywhere. This is the part of these old Ferraris that no modern paddle-shift car can replicate. You worked for every gear change, and the car made you feel it. The click of the lever into those slots is the whole experience in miniature.
There were other cars at the show worth looking at, but for me this one ended the conversation before it started. I also ran into Mark Ettinger, a local professional photographer who's also a serious car guy. He's got an '80s red Porsche 911 with the big duckwing tail, which is one of the more desirable shapes Porsche ever put out. Always good to bump into someone who sees these cars the same way you do.
If you're anywhere near Arundel on a Tuesday, Bentley's is worth the trip. You never know what's going to show up, and sometimes it's the exact car you've been wanting to see in person since you were a kid holding a controller.
This is the car.
The wide hips, the strakes running down the doors, the flat nose with the prancing horse front and center. The 512TR is the evolution of the Testarossa, a sharper, faster, better-sorted version of the same idea. Ferrari introduced it in 1991 to replace the original Testarossa that had run since 1984, and it was more than a facelift. The flat-12 grew to a proper 4.9 liters making around 428 horsepower, the chassis got stiffer, the brakes got bigger, and the whole car was lowered and tightened up so it actually drove like the numbers suggested. Seeing one parked in front of a roadside saloon, with people leaning on the bar railing behind it and one guy in Mickey Mouse ears taking it all in, is exactly the kind of thing that makes these Tuesday shows worth the short drive from my place.
It's a local owner, and from what I gather he's got a deep bench of exotic and classic toys. You can tell when a car like this belongs to someone who actually drives and enjoys it rather than someone who only trailers it to concours lawns. It's got Maine antique plates on the back and it's sitting in a gravel-and-asphalt lot next to a powder-blue muscle car, which is about the most New England summer scene I can imagine.
Up close is where the 512TR earns its keep.
Those side strakes aren't just styling. They feed air to the radiators mounted behind the doors, which is why the whole back half of the car is so dramatically wide. The paint was deep and clean, the side glass reflecting the crowd milling around behind me. There's a tan interior peeking through that pairs beautifully with the red.
The first time I saw one of these in person was years after the PlayStation days. My dad and I were at New Hampshire International Speedway for an event that had nothing to do with NASCAR, and we got to walk out on the actual track. Sitting there was a yellow 512TR, and I remember standing over it the same way I'm standing over this red one now. Some shapes just don't let go of you.
From the rear it's all business. The full-width grille over the taillights, the 512TR script, and that prancing horse badge dead center. This is the angle most people remember, because it's the one you'd see disappearing down the road. The "512" refers to 5 liters and 12 cylinders, that flat-12 making north of 420 horsepower, which was serious money in the early '90s and is still plenty quick today.
I kept circling it. The three-quarter rear view shows off how the roofline tapers down into that wide tail, with the rest of the show's cars lined up colorfully in the background. It photographs as well as it did on the bedroom wall, which is not something you can say about every dream car once you finally see it in the metal.
The interior is its own reward. That gated shifter is the heart of it. Open the door and you get the classic Ferrari layout: the metal gate, the three-spoke wheel with the horse on the hub, the gauges set deep in the binnacle, and tan leather everywhere. This is the part of these old Ferraris that no modern paddle-shift car can replicate. You worked for every gear change, and the car made you feel it. The click of the lever into those slots is the whole experience in miniature.
There were other cars at the show worth looking at, but for me this one ended the conversation before it started. I also ran into Mark Ettinger, a local professional photographer who's also a serious car guy. He's got an '80s red Porsche 911 with the big duckwing tail, which is one of the more desirable shapes Porsche ever put out. Always good to bump into someone who sees these cars the same way you do.
If you're anywhere near Arundel on a Tuesday, Bentley's is worth the trip. You never know what's going to show up, and sometimes it's the exact car you've been wanting to see in person since you were a kid holding a controller.