A classic Ferrari from an era when car names mattered sold for $148,000 on SBX Cars

This is a 1991 Ferrari Testarossa that’s special for two reasons.

First, 1991 was the last year of production for this iconic car.

Second, it was owned and driven by a US collector and ‘Ferrari Club of America’ member.

Now, it’s just been sold via SBX Cars.

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A Ferrari that’s actually been used

The Ferrari Testarossa you see here is in mint condition, but it was actually driven.

The thing with most supercars, people sometimes buy them as collectibles rather than runarounds.

As a result, you sometimes get 10- or even 20-year-old cars with close to 0 miles on the clock.

That’s not the case here, the 380-horsepower, 4-9-liter flat-12 engine under the hood of this Testarossa had put 34,813 miles under its belt before being sold on SBX Cars for $148,000.

A car from a different era

These days, automakers name their cars in a way that almost feels random.

There are two categories: some try to evoke an image or a feeling with words, while others are a combination of letters and numbers.

But in the past, names – and even letters and numbers – had a meaning.

For the longest time, for example, any Mercedes ‘63‘ model would be called that because the engine was nearly 6300CC in terms of cubic capacity.

Now that’s gone, so cars are sometimes still called ’63’, but then the engine is a 4.0-liter.

The Testarossa symbolizes that era.

Testarossa means redhead in Italian, and Ferrari called it that precisely because the cam covers for the 12-cylinder engine were painted red.

The car world has changed a lot since then and maybe Ferrari will eventually revive the Testarossa namesake for a new model.

Hopefully, they’ll do it for a car that actually does have cam covers, ie, a gas car.