How it got out of the factory in Maranello, history does not say anything about, but in any case it has been slow.
It is rare to see a Ferrari on the street, not least because the brand from Maranello barely builds 10,000 cars a year.
Even more rare is spotting a prototype out in public, and if it does, it's under a sea of camouflage.
Nevertheless, this Ferrari F12 TDF has escaped from the factory and ended up on the other side of the Atlantic, namely in the USA, where it has just been sold by a dealer.
And of course it's not just any F12 TDF, although Ferrari built just 799 examples of the car. The model that has just been sold on Bring A Trailer is one of Ferrari's prototypes.
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This means that the 6.3-liter V12 engine is limited to just 25 km/h, and that it will never, ever be registered for use on public roads. Neither at home, in Italy nor in the USA.
Pictures of the car reveal that, at least for a Ferrari, it has short lengths. The odometer is well enough in miles, but the 19,756 miles corresponds to just under 32,000 kilometers, 31,792 kilometers to be exact.
Whether Ferrari itself has cards with such low speeds all the way to the almost 32,000 kilometers, history does not report anything, but an educated guess is a resounding 'no'.
The seller also writes that the Ferrari people understood the top speed limit when the development work was well over. On the other hand, it is left in limbo, where the factory has not kept the car itself.
A look into the cabin reveals that the prototype was probably developed at the end of the process with the special edition of the F12, because apart from a few atypical buttons in the cabin, the prototype actually looks like something that could roll around on the roads without problems, even at a speed higher than 25 km/h.
The car has just been sold after massive interest. Officially, only 10 bids have been made for the car, but the comment trail is red-hot. When the auction ended at 19.05 local time, the highest bid was 475,000 dollars, or the equivalent of 3.3 million kroner.
In fact, it is not so rare that prototypes escape from the factory. Among other things, Boosted has told the story of an 'Opel' that was actually supposed to die, but which a passionate teacher at a technical school has kept alive. Read more about that story here .
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