You’ve probably heard of the newer Ferrari FXX and FXX-K, but what about the FX? This isn’t just a track racer based on a Ferrari hypercar, it’s a street legal machine with Testarossa DNA. And with a total production of just six, you’ve probably never seen one. Until now.
We owe this glimpse of Ferrari history Shmee150who recently visited Marconi Automobile Museum in California. FX is part of an incredible $60 million collection of exotic, classic and race cars, all donated by Dick and John Marconi to form a non-profit for children. As well as exhibiting some really fantastic vehicles, the museum hosts special events and donates a portion of the proceeds to charity.
It wasn’t easy to steal the spotlight from a Ferrari F50, Ayrton Senna’s Formula 1 car, or the original Keaton-era Batmobile, but FX pulled it off. This is actually one of three vehicles in the museum that were previously part of the collection of the famous Sultan of Brunei, joining the very rare Cizeta V16 and Ferrari 456 Spyder in their own right. But the 1996 Ferrari FX is truly something special to behold.
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Commissioned specifically for the Sultan of Brunei, a Ferrari 512M supplies the bones for this car. That also means the 4.9-liter flat-12 engine sits behind the driver, but isn’t connected to a gated manual transmission. Instead, you’ll find a race-derived paddle-shift gearbox engineered by Williams, installed on request to give the FX a semi-automatic driving experience. It predates the Ferrari F1 gearbox by several years.
As for what you can look, the body is made of carbon fiber and follows the general 512/Testarossa theme that the chassis gives it. It was designed by Pininfarina, featuring enormous NACA ducts in the bonnet and side vents that protruded behind the windows, eliminating the straked Testarossa’s lower side intakes. There’s more carbon fiber under the enormous cowl in the form of the intake pipe, which is designed to feed the 12-pot. In many ways, this was a supercar far ahead of its time.
The fate of the other five cars is unknown. All created for a Bruneian family but we are grateful to see at least one alive and well and on display for fans to appreciate. For more classic and rare automotive content, see Rambling About Cars podcast, available below.
