The latest bespoke commission completed by Ferrari’s special projects department is the SP48 Unica, a two-seat V8 supercar that looks so good it’s a crying shame it will remain a one-off. Created for, and with the assistance of, an unnamed and hugely rich “long-standing” customer, the SP48 Unica is based around the recently axed F8 Tributo, a car that can trace its roots to the 458 Italia launched in 2009. But the comprehensive visual transformation means you might easily guess there’s a new 296 GTB hiding underneath the sculpted panels.
The sleek new nose features headlights
that more closely echo those on the Roma and 296 than the F8, including the
unusual body-color lower grille again reminiscent of the one on the Roma grand
tourer but works even better here. The front lid features deep vents to get rid
of air drawn in through the nose, and the windshield wraps around the car,
aided by the blackout A-pillars to give the impression of a giant helmet visor.
Moving to the side we can see repositioned air intakes for the side-mounted
radiators, and additional intakes in the upper bodywork just behind the door
glass feeding air to the intercoolers, while black sill panels cut deep into
the lower bodywork to give the car a far more muscular, athletic look than the
F8.
But it’s at the rear where the SP48 will
really drop jaws because there’s no rear window. That means no chance to see
the engine through the rearview mirror, and no chance
for passers-by to peer into the engine bay from the outside, either, which is a
shame. But visually, it really works, the front and rear sections of the car
being tied together by a central spine that cleverly fades from dark to light.
Ferrari’s traditional quad lights are still just about present, but now form
part of a horizontal LED strip running across the rear of the car located in a
oval shape created between the small fixed spoiler mounted above, and its
mirror image located below.
Ferrari hasn’t released any images of the
interior, but glimpses of it in the accompanying video show that, and in common
with most of the company’s bespoke creations, it’s little changed from the one
fitted to the donor car. But Maranello says that apart from the deletion of the
rear screen, the SP48 gets laser-perforated Alcantara upholstery featuring
hexagonal motifs replicated from the front grille and roof, and through which
underlying red-orange fabric matched to the exterior color can be seen.
There’s no mention of mechanical upgrades,
which means the SP48 is almost certainly running the F8 Tributo’s standard 710
hp twin-turbo 3.9-liter V8. But where a factory F8 Tributo would have
set you back around US$ 277,000 before the order book close this spring, it’s
likely that this Ferrari’s owner forked out around US$ 2 million to create the
SP48, and waited over a year to take delivery.
