Ferrari 2009

With one photo in particular appearing the way the infamous video of Sasquatch loping through the woods might look reflected in the side of an oil tanker caked in road scuz, these new Ferrari spy shots are creating quite a stir. Taken from about a half-mile away with a Kodak disposable and a cracked pair of children’s binoculars, the ground-breaker of these spy shots reveals either a Ferrari prototype, an overturned speedboat, or a pile of fresh mulch hidden beneath a red car cover. Location? Unknown, but no doubt somewhere sporty, fast, and with really high fences. Speculation is that this is the replacement for the F430, but we believe otherwise, as customers have been taking delivery of the current mid-engine Ferrari for less than three years. For work on its replacement to be far enough along for test drives on the streets around Modena would be too soon for Ferrari’s usual life cycle.

More likely, these shots show final-development mules for the F430 Challenge Stradale, which has not made an official appearance yet but which our spies managed to catch back in October. As for the mysterious car under the cover, it probably is an undisguised prototype of the Challenge Stradale. If anything about this car is a testbed for the next-generation car, it is possible that what we are seeing is an F430 mule with a prototype powerplant. The greatest question here—other than the eerie appearance of large footprints in the forests of the American northwest—is the truth behind rumors that suggest the engine in the eventual F430 replacement will get its zoom from a 9500-to-10,000-rpm V-8 of more than 500 horsepower. The horsepower sounds reasonable, but 10,000 rpm? Ask Sasquatch what he thinks about that.