When I was 15 years old, I was a magazine junkie. Specifically, I was a car magazine junkie. I literally collected a year or so of car magazines, mostly modification mags that detailed tuning and ground-effects for cars that would become unrecognizable due to the aftermarket work. There were Hondas that resembled BMWs and Nissans that looked a tad bit Italian. Regardless, they caught my attention, and, of course, I had my favorites. It wasn’t the sound these cars would make, nor the colors or blonde-bombshell models leaning on them that caught my eye: it was the shape. I would just look at the overall shape and admire.
I remember one I was digging around in my teenage room which housed my massive magazine collection, I found an old pin-up car poster I had when I was younger: a Ferrari F40. It was Corsa Red of course; the stuff of legends. Now being quite a bit older, I can appreciate that work of art so much more; but, specifically I still admire the F40’s shape. You see, with the tuned Japanese stuff, though the ground-effects and the noises added to the overall packaging and shape, the small details had not been accounted for. It is the small details that add extreme character to a car’s overall design and performance. I remember looking at a highly modified Toyota Supra and then at my poster-Ferrari F40. What I though had looked like something similar to an Italian beauty in the Toyota, upon second glance, looked nothing like one at all. The favor went to the F40. It had the “drape” effect of the body (you know, that thing where the entire sculpture as if God had placed the metal and draped it over a certain frame). It had the noise (not fabricated but engineered through and through). It had the overall shape with the amazing small details. It was the dream; it was the ultimate fantasy car for me. I had taken that pin-up car down years earlier at that time in lieu of something more grown up, but after looking at it, I realized that I wish I hadn’t; and, I wish I had appreciated the time it was on the wall more. I could and would just stare at that poster for the afternoon dreaming of what it must be like to own such an exotic specimen. I dreamed of feeling the turbo kicking in; the smell of leather and oil; the noise of fiery combustion; all of this in a red, beautiful shape. Forget the Skylines, S2000s, and Supras: the F40 was and still is what dreams are made of.
What was/is your pin-up car? I would love to know!
– JRB, Editor-in-Chief
The Spirited Drive 