LAPS OF HONOUR

The RML Short Wheelbase is a stunning tribute to the immortal Ferrari 250 SWB, built around the glorious V12 from the 550 Maranello. We drive it to Goodwood, scene of some of the original SWB's finest hours

- RICHARD MEADEN

IT SEEMS ALMOST INCONCEIVABLE THAT A small car company started in post-war Modena by a curmudgeonly man with his eye on road cars but his heart in racing has now become a $50 billion megabrand. Yet it's all part of the endlessly fascinating fairy tale that is Ferrari.

I'm not sure what Enzo would make of the fast car landscape in 2023. There was a time when he knew all his customers by name. Nowadays almost 9000 cars are built, sold, and shipped from Maranello every year. One suspects he would regard many of today's customers with characteristic disdain, but not before gladly relieving them of their money. It was always thus, apparently.

He would doubtless be vexed by his beloved Scuderia's current struggles to capitalise on a quick car. And he would certainly have short shrift for the environmental pressures that threaten the future of his legendary dodici cilindri engines. Not that he appeared to be the sentimental sort, as evidenced by his scrapping of all the 156 'Sharknose' Grand Prix cars at the end of a victorious 1961 F1 season. Similarly, his belief that the greatest Ferrari was the car that had yet to be built points to a man for whom wistfulness simply didn't compute.

So, what would he think of the RML Short Wheelbase? You can't help but think he'd be bemused by the notion of going to great lengths to make an old car look even older. Likewise, that customers would be prepared to pay £1.35m (plus tax) for the finished article. I'm sure there are plenty today who share that view, yet restomodding remains a compelling phenomenon, one that trades on nostalgia yet increasingly employs modern thinking, technology, and materials to make revered classics perform better than they ever did in period.