ORDINARILY, THIS WOULD BE THE dullest of driving environments. A nondescript stretch of dual carriageway, in steady drizzle, in a forgettable bit of Germany. But in the Daytona SP3, it feels like a stint at Le Mans in the late 1960s or early ’70s. The trees the other side of the grey Armco are rushing past in Cinemascope and beads of rain elongate and slide across the deeply bowled screen like speed-line graphics in a sci-fi jump to hyperspace. They are interrupted by a central single wiper blade, just like a classic sports prototype. Two curving humps over the front wheel-arches frame the view ahead through the wraparound screen, topped by staggered mirrors. They reflect a rooster-tail of spray, trailing the sound of a big-capacity naturally aspirated V12.
That is the entire point of this car: to fire the imagination, to be a wheeled storyteller. This is how I imagine it must feel to be at the wheel of a Ferrari 330 P4, a 512 S or another of the golden-era sports racers this car takes its inspiration from. The Daytona SP3 is so named because it is the third model in Ferrari’s Icona series, Maranello’s low-volume, money-almost-no-object machines inspired by different eras of its history, sold to clients and collectors on first-name terms with the factory and considered to be ambassadors for the brand. It is not so much a case of a customer calling Ferrari to put their name down for an Icona; Ferrari call them.
The Daytona SP3’s name comes from the 1967 Daytona 24-hour race, wherein Ferrari (still stung by Ford’s clean sweep at Le Mans 1966) took the top three places with the achingly beautiful 330 P3/4, 330 P4, and 412P. The SP3 follows the Monza SP1 and SP2 in the Icona series (SP standing for Special Project). A run of 599 SP3s will be built, priced at €2 million (Rs 16 crore).
