Testarossa Red

Testarossa Red, the red of an Italian coupe of the 1980s

The name of the shade refers to the Ferrari Testarossa, a road coupe presented in 1984. The red here does not lie on a racing machine but on a production car with unusually extensive smooth flanks, where every ripple in the ground and every transition between parts shows.

The subject of the shade

The Testarossa was drawn by the Pininfarina studio, and what makes it unmistakable are the horizontal ribs running from the front doors to the rear fenders. They lead air to the radiators moved back to the engine, a flat twelve-cylinder with its cylinders in two rows facing each other. Because of it the car is substantially wider at the rear than at the front, and its tail is among the most recognizable silhouettes of the decade. Production ran until 1991, after which the 512 TR and F512 M types took over from the real subject.

Where the red is used on a model

• bodies of road-going V12 Ferraris of the 1980s and 1990s
• large uninterrupted surfaces of flanks and hoods, where the tone is meant to be the same along the whole length
• touching up edges around the ribs and grilles, which are masked in black
• display models in larger scales, where the shade holds up against a photograph of the real subject

Who the paint serves

Collectors of road-going supercars who want a red matching a particular type rather than one universal red for everything. It is also useful when repairing an older model, where a damaged spot has to be filled in with a tone that fits the surrounding surface. On the early examples of the real subject the red moreover meets a high-set single mirror and a dark band below the sills, so the boundary of the color nowhere runs along a straight line.