02/04/2020
The world of Ferrari test mules is a strange one. Sometimes they look absolutely absurd, but there's a method to the madness. Behind those weird flaps and odd bulges there’s some form of research going towards the final car. So we decided to take a look into the mules that came before Ferrari’s legendary hypercar series.
1/2/3 - Firstly, the 288 GTO. It’s no secret that the 288 came from it’s more humble sibling, the 308 GTB, and that’s no more apparent than the very first 288 Prototype (chassis #44421). The car still looks very close to standard, but the telltale signs are there when you notice the air scoop near the rear buttress, the vents to expel hot air behind the rear wheel, and the massively increased track width. 44421 was later converted to full road going 288 GTO specification to carry out road testing and ultimately crash testing, where it was destroyed.
4 - Onto the 288’s successor, the legendary F40. The F40 took many inspirations both stylistically and mechanically from the 288 Evoluzione, and that’s very obvious when you look at one of the earliest known and solely recorded mule for the F40. There’s no confirmation of the chassis number, but you can see Evolzione's wing still in place, while the front begins to resemble the F40 more.
5 - A rarely seen clay model of the F40 when the final design was being nailed down.
6 - While there’s little to no information on the F40 mule in picture 4, we do know quite a bit about the 8 F40 prototypes that were used to finish developing the car. The prototypes can usually be distinguished by the features that didn’t make it to the road car. For instance behind the rear wheel there are 5 vents, where the road car had 4. The vents in the rear window were arranged differently, as were the wing mirrors mounted to the A-pillar instead of the doors, although the one in image 6 doesn’t have any.
7/8/9 - In 1995 we saw the eye-wateringly cool F50 hit the roads, but Ferrari had been working on it as early as 1993, when these pictures were first seen. At the time, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was just a slightly modified F40. In fact the rear end is nearly 100% F40. However with the magic of hindsight, you can easily see an F50 in the making. The convertible roof shape leading into the flat rear deck, the more rounded front end with the mounted lights instead of the pop-ups. An article in 1993 that spied the car said that it was set to be called the ‘375 Barchetta’ but in the end it continued on the ‘F’ moniker instead.
10/11/12 - Onto the Enzo. This is one of our favourite mules of all time. Part 355, part 348, Ferrari cobbled this beautiful monstrosity together from left over parts in the year 2000, and slotted the Enzo’s now iconic 6.0-litre V12 into the middle of it. Dubbed the ‘Muletto M3’, what’s interesting is that the car wasn’t destroyed or repurposed like so many other mules. Instead it was preserved and sold on. It came up for auction in 2005 and sold for a bargain £195,000. Then it went up again in 2011, selling for €750,000. The photos in the post were taken in 2014, when it was prepared for sale yet again. However we couldn’t confirm the figure paid for it. We doubt it’d be the £195,000 some lucky bastard got it for in 2005.
13/14/15- Another Enzo, this time from 2001, just 1 year before the final design was seen in the public. By now you can see the Enzo’s iconic looks starting to take shape. The massive air intake in the side, along with the instantly recognisable cockpit shape. What’s interesting though is the rear. While it looks very similar to the final production design, it almost has bat wings that raise above the usually boxy rear angles, potentially implying that it was meant to receive a large fixed wing like the F40 and F50 that came before it.
16 - Now onto the LaFerrari. By this time the world was a far more connected place than the generations previous, and Ferrari couldn’t test anything without members of the public taking 400 pictures and uploading them to the internet. Ferrari’s first attempt to disguise the LaFerrari was in the form of various cut up 458s at the end of 2012. However the world clocked on to the massively elongated nose, additional cooling towards the back and the sound of quite a few more cylinders than there should be in a 458.
17/18 - Before long Ferrari dropped the act and started using mules that looked very close to the final car as they were entering the final stages of development in 2013. It was also at this point when the hybrid system was all but confirmed, when a mule was seen silently coasting around the Fiorano test track. What’s interesting is that Ferrari states that the production LaFerrari is not able to operate in electric only mode, but many owners state that it is possible to roll around at very low speeds without turning on the engine.
What’s your favourite Ferrari mule? And make sure to give ‘Driver.’ a follow for more content like this!
