The spoiled rich kid’s ultimate toy car, a fully electric 75% scaled replica of the famous Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa, now has its grown-up configurator in 3D augmented reality. The Little Car Company offers your son or daughter “complete creative freedom to design their very own specification, from choosing a livery to their taste to selecting a race number”.

Price is of minor importance, as only 299 will be built, starting at €94 000 as advertised in 2021 when first launched as an official Ferrari product. One of the rare original full-sized ones, released at the end of the 1957 race season by Ferrari, was known to be sold at $39,5 million back in 2014.

Historic liveries

So the one thing you won’t see in the configurator is option prices. You can choose color, historic liveries, your personalizable livery for body color, interior leather or piping, Borranni wire wheels, or your racing number. Other than that, the customer is always right, and any further personalization is just a matter of request.

The configurator offers 3D augmented reality: scan the QR code on the site on your smartphone to see your configuration going ‘live’ in your garage or environment as if you walk around it.

Waiting list

Build slots are allocated on a first-come, first-serve basis. You’ll have to request a build slot to be contacted by the sales team. For those who did not make it onto the initial build list, there is a waiting list to jump in when a client chooses not to proceed with the reservation.

The company specifies a security deposit of 20%, which is fully refundable at any point up until you confirm the final specifications of your Ferrari Testa Rossa J, and make the payment of the first 50% of the remaining balance.

Built in England

The Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa J, where J stands for Junior, is assembled in Bicester, near Oxford, England, and there will be only 299 of them worldwide, each having its own chassis number.

The Testa Rossa J results from a collaboration between Ferrari and the world expert in hand-building junior cars, The Little Car Company. The latter, owned by CEO Ben Hedley, already made headlines by building the Aston Martin DB5 Junior and the Bugatti Baby II. That one was revealed at the 2019 Geneva Motor Show and sold out in less than three weeks.

Original drawings

For the Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa, the Italian sports car manufacturer made the original drawings available so that the hand-built scale model has identical proportions to the original.

The suspension was also faithfully reproduced and is fitted with Bilstein shock absorbers, custom-made springs, and Brembo brakes. The spoke rims measure 12 inches and are equipped with Pirelli tires. The chassis was fine-tuned on the Fiorano racetrack.

A Manettino switch, inspired by the Ferrari 812 Superfast, allows the young driver from 14 years old on to choose between four driving modes: Novice mode with 1 kW of power and a max speed of 24 km/hour, Comfort mode (4 kW, 40 km/h), Sport mode (10 kW, 80 km/h) and Race mode (12 kW, 80 km/h). But as the cars aren’t street-legal, you’ll have to ask Daddy to build your racing track in the garden.

Pacco Gara option

Beginning this year, the company added the limited edition option ‘Pacco Gara’, meaning ‘race package’ in Italian, with more power and racing features. Like a racing roll cage, Sabelt-made racing harnesses like the ‘real’ Ferrari race cars, adjustable dampers, and brake bias to tune the little car for the race track. A software update increases power from 12 kW (16 hp) to 14 kW (18,7 hp).

“Our team has worked meticulously to ensure that each new feature of the Pacco Gara enhances the driving experience of the Testa Rossa J,” said Ben Hedley, CEO of The Little Car Company.

“Every element of the Pacco Gara has been developed with, and signed off by, the team at Maranello and is focused on paying homage to one of history’s great racers while also offering drivers a substantial, tangible taste of what it feels like to be behind its wheel.”