StanceWorks took their self-named 244 GTK to the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) show this year. The FrankenFerrari won SEMA’s best high performance build. Because SEMA is full of people who couldn’t give a sh*t about authenticity – a perspective Ferrari doesn’t share.
To the point where Maranello’s lawyers are busy suing the pants off of anyone who dares f*ck with their car’s trademarked designs. And boy did Mike Burroughs f*ck with a 308.
It wasn’t enough that the tuner slotted a 1000 hp turbocharged four-cylinder four-stroke Honda K24 engine into a 308 – a gargantuan task that remains unfinished – the man also chopped up the chassis. With a Sawzall, of course.
Custom fuel cell? D’uh! Roll-bar? Certo! Five-Speed Quaife helical differential gearbox? Why not? And so on.
It’s the bodywork that risks a cease-and-desist letter from Maranello’s minions. Mr. Burroughs’ mob “hacked off” the factory arches so that “our newly installed Liberty Walk/LB Performance/LBWK wide body kit will fit as intended.”
Ignoring the rivets, the weird hood and Hella-equipped modification of the federally-mandated five-mile-per-hour bumper, the result isn’t horrific – if you’re not a purist.
A person like, say, Jay Leno, who doesn’t own a single Ferrari but favors all-original automobiles over anything other than Uncle Louie’s Chicken Wings Marinara. Cars like this.
And now we can see what StnceWorks has done to Leonardo Fioravanti‘s song, ma. He’s taken an elegant if slightly ungainly form (better realized in the 512 BB, more cohesive in red and perfect from the side) and made it muy macho.
It’s a 308 race car for the road- that’s not as pretty as the 308 GTB Group 4 racer. And then . . . then there’s the 244 GTK’s rear wing. Oh. My. God.
No. Just no. You can’t tell me that a) the car looks better without a wing and b) if you “need” a wing to create downforce on a 1000 hp 308, there isn’t a better solution. I can’t think of a worse one.
Still, you gotta give StanceWorks props for all the hard work that’s gone into this, um, car. Technically, it’s a resto-mod. But there comes a point where the word “bastardization” applies.
Anyway, I’d like to know why anyone would mess with the one part of any Ferrari that’s worth a damn: the engine.
I suppose it’s the same reason people take their brand new Ferrari to [the relatively demure] modders at Novitec to pump-up the volume and personalize the bodywork – doubling the price (but not the value) of the Ferrari in question. As SEMA’s existence proves, there’s street cred to be had building something incredibly stupid with incredible finesse.
Strange as it may seem, I’m with Ferrari on this one. Kinda. While I wouldn’t sue anyone for modifying a factory build, I would want the prancing horse logo removed from a car that strayed so far from the original design. Lest anyone think it was born in Italy.
Then again, the high-revving Honda engine does sound pretty freakin’ great. Given reliability issues, I wonder if Ferrari ever thought about . . . Nah.
