If you had to be reincarnated into a car, you probably wouldn’t want to return to this earthly realm as an early prototype. Built rough, run hard, taken apart, studied, and usually ultimately crushed, these are the purpose-built torture subjects of a vehicle development program. As such, they usually don’t make it past the factory gates intact when their useful lifespan is up because they aren’t homologated, aren’t warranty-worthy, and most corporate lawyers would throw a Bill O’Reilly-tier fit if a customer got their hands on one. Maybe the lawyers at Ferrari were on vacation, because not only is this a real LaFerrari prototype, it’s one you can actually buy.
This particular prototype is officially called the “F150 Muletto M4.” While that might sound insensitive to anyone who knows English but doesn’t know Italian, it actually means it started life as a Ferrari 458 Italia before being cut and stretched and welded by mad craftspeople until it could accommodate a V12 and a hybrid system.
Obviously, this required unspeakable things to happen to the Pininfarina coachwork, so the engineers went to town with the rivets and plastics and sheetmetal until the end product looked like the four-wheeled equivalent of a baby moose. I mean, just look at the thing. It has a mouth like a bass on pills, each exhaust tip is about a foot longer than the car, the air intake on the engine cover is actually a cleaning attachment from the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man’s Hoover, and the brakes don’t match. However, all of this is okay, because this thing wasn’t made to look pretty. It was made to prove that the hybrid V12 concept behind the LaFerrari could indeed be functional.
Once this LaFerrari prototype was done experiencing the automotive equivalent of the Geneva Checklist, Ferrari had the information it needed, and this sort of vehicle would normally be considered a liability. However, Ferrari customers aren’t normal car customers. Sell a minivan buyer a prototype, and they’ll try to daily drive it. Sell a Ferrari collector a prototype, and they’ll put it in a museum. Looking to raise a little extra cash, Ferrari reportedly offered this and a few other LaFerrari prototypes to its closest, cosiest, most profitable customers, so long as they never touched the road again.
That brings us to today, because it seems that someone may have grown tired of having this LaFerrari mule simply sit around and collect dust. Maybe they’re downsizing, maybe they’re re-prioritizing, or maybe they’ve decided that it’s a bit pointless having a car like this that you can’t really use. Either way, this LaFerrari mule is crossing the RM Sotheby’s auction block at Pebble Beach Car Week, and it’s expected to fetch between $900,000 and $1.2 million. On the one hand, that’s a ludicrous amount of money to spend on a car you can’t drive on the road. On the other, it’s actually quite cheap for what is essentially a LaFerrari, considering production examples of that hypercar are worth more than $3.5 million on the low end.
So, if you want a blazing fast, face-meltingly gopping, rather interesting Ferrari, have seven figures to spend, and can sign your name, this LaFerrari mule crosses the auction block in Monterey on Aug. 15. Best-case, you could score a fascinating part of the new car development process. Worst-case, you could be the reason a new rule gets invented. Either way, you’d be a legend.
Top graphic image: RM Sotheby’s
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I would make it road legal. I’m in Ohio, all I’d have to do is tell the BMV it’s a kit…
I have to say the Enzo mule that sold a while back was a lot more… attractive. You can tell it’s had a lot of length added in the middle (almost like it’s been made intoa limo) and the wheels have been shoved to the corners, but the straight lines of the 348 lend themselves much more to this kind of thing.
https://www.topgear.com/car-news/supercar/amazing-ferrari-enzo-prototype-sale
Perhaps a stupid question, but why did they modify the front end of the thing so extensively (and hideously)? From the back, it looks normal-ish, so why didn’t they keep the 458 front end more intact? Seems like it would call a bit less attention to itself if it still looked at least a little bit like a 458 and not a giant vacuum cleaner attachment. I assume it’s cooling-related, but it still seems like it could have been better integrated into the 458 styling.
I’m pretty sure you’re correct with the guess it’s cooling related. I would imagine they are trying to find the volume of intake needed and having a square box allows for easy calculations, and once they know exactly how much it needs they can start to break up the inlets and change their shape as long as the total volume is the same. But yes it is a very offputting front end!
Damn you Thomas, you couldn’t write this article 2 weeks ago.i could have arranged to go to the auction and buy it, but no since you wrote it so late I’m scheduled to work that day as a pinsetter at my job at Mohawk Lanes in Indiana Pa.
All joking aside does the next buyer have to commit to not driving it as well? Is driving on a track okay? These are the things you should cover if I am to commit my paycheck and tips for the next 3,000 years.
People criticized the LaFerrari name but imagine the jokes if it hit the automotive press as the Ferrari F150!
Old Top Gear, or maybe DT and Torch, would have to point out that if you tell people you drive an F150 they’ll ask you to help them move, so how does it do for that?
(Cut to a Ferrari with furniture tied to the back deck…)
Muletto! Little mule! Love it!
I prefer muffaleto some good as Cajun food.
The Ferrari is cool but now I’m stuck trying to answer the real question.
What car would I want to be reincarnated as?
I know it can never be legally registered or driven on a public road … but tracks are not public roads (except at least one in Germany…). So a courageous owner with deeeeep pockets could have some fun where the fun shoudl be had anyway.
I like this.
If you can spend a million on a prototype car, you can probably afford to rent a field and rip big grassy donuts.
Ok, the kind of person who buys this probably won’t do this, but it’s what I’d do.
How about the ring? Legal? Why not register it I thought it was just Ferrari required it.
Since it was never built to be registered, they didn’t bother doing all the things to meet regulations. I don’t think most places are cool with tailpipes sticking out a foot behind the body, and probably a thousand other less obvious things. It would also need to be crash tested and, given that it seems to be a 1-of-1, that’ll be a bit tough.
If you can afford the car, you can afford to build your own track.
Miata engine swap?
“Built rough, run hard, taken apart, studied, and usually ultimately crushed”
I didn’t know I was a prototype car re-incarnated into this corpereal form, but it all makes sense now…
I was a prototype car suffered the abuse reincarnated as a wobbly 350000 Nissan taxi
Rather have the svx protype. A xt6 w svx drivetrain and box flares.
Would hoon