Every kid who grew up with a Testarossa poster on the wall knows the car in one color. Rosso Corsa red, or the white one from Miami Vice. I have not seen this car in person, and I have not driven it. But Irvine shop Boden Autohaus just built the version of the Testarossa I always imagined in the dark, and it is the first black one that has ever made sense to me.
The Testarossa Miami Vice Never Had
Miami Vice ran its hero Testarossas in white for a practical reason. Dark bodywork got lost in the show’s neon-soaked night shoots, so the black Testarossa never got its moment on screen. Nearly every poster since has been some shade of red. Boden Autohaus clearly felt the same way I do about that missed chance. The Irvine shop, best known for building titanium exhausts for everything from Enzos to Pagani Zondas, just unveiled its most menacing tribute yet: a Ferrari 512 TR wrapped head to toe in matte black.
The donor car matters here. The 512 TR is the comprehensively re-engineered evolution of the Testarossa, the one that bowed at the 1992 LA Auto Show with a stiffer chassis, bigger rolling stock, and a flat-12 massaged to 428 horsepower. Ferrari built just 2,261 of them before production wrapped in 1994, and clean examples now trade deep into six-figure territory. Nobody blacks one of these out on a whim.
Matte Black, Strake to Strake
The entire wedge is drenched in a matte black wrap, strakes and all. The only contrast in all that darkness is the yellow Cavallino shields on the fenders. Below the beltline sit 19-inch HRE 501 FMR wheels, with satin black mesh centers and gloss black lips that riff on the period basketweaves of the era. Nitron R1 coilovers handle the slam, and a front axle lift spares the chin on the way into Cars & Coffee. It is a build that understands the assignment: change the attitude, leave the Pininfarina lines alone.
The Flat-12 Gets the Last Word
Peer through that mesh and you will catch the build’s only other flash of color: the gold calipers of an Endless big brake kit, a serious hardware bump over 30-year-old stock stoppers. As for the 4.9-liter flat-12, Boden wisely left all 428 horses alone and bolted up a Capristo exhaust so the twelve sings that much louder on its climb to redline. The gated five-speed and the black leather cabin remain untouched, exactly as Maranello intended. That restraint is what makes the build work. Everything you can see is different. Everything that made the car great is the same.
It is the same idea behind Hoonigan’s one-of-one RWB Porsche: take an icon, change the attitude, keep the soul.
The Build, by the Numbers
Builder: Boden Autohaus. Base vehicle: Ferrari 512 TR. Engine: 4.9-liter flat-12, 428 horsepower. Transmission: five-speed gated manual. Wheels: 19-inch HRE 501 FMR. Suspension: Nitron R1 coilovers with front axle lift. Brakes: Endless big brake kit. Exhaust: Capristo. Finish: matte black wrap.
No Price, and That Is the Point
Boden has not published a price for this one. It is a showcase build living in the shop’s gallery rather than a listing, and that is honest. A clean 512 TR already trades deep into six figures before anyone touches it, so a build like this is a conversation, not a checkout. It joins a run of showcase machines that exist to make a point rather than fill an order book, like the Polaris RZR Pro R Factory Boost. The Irvine crew takes commissions year-round, so if a blacked-out flat-12 of your own sounds appealing, a quote request through their site is the move. For the rest of us, it is the poster car finally wearing black, and it looks exactly like the one I imagined.
