You’d be hard-pressed to come up with a more famous supercar feature than the Ferrari Testarossa’s “cheese grater” side air intakes. And yet this ultra-custom example of the ’80s icon shaves those side strakes for what Japanese tuner Liberty Walk founder Wataru Kato, who recently came across this extreme build, calls a “rainy day Shakotan”.
Unsurprisingly, Kato-san is not an easy man to impress. After all, his label does build a widebody kit for the 512TR ’90s evolution of the Testarossa. However, in his latest video, he does seem to enjoy getting up close and personal with a Shakotan-spec Testarossa build by unnamed enthusiasts who are active on the Japanese drifting scene.
Given Liberty Walk’s four-rotor R35 GT-R drift car, he does know quite a few people in the sideways game And while we can only see the vehicle inside a garage, a keyhole peep would probably be enough to reveal the striking nature of this seriously modded icon.
Four decades ago when Ferrari had Pininfarina design the Testarossa, the massive side intakes, which run from the doors to the rear quarter panels, were both a selling point and a necessity. In a bid to optimize cooling, the newcomer left the Berlinetta Boxer’s front radiator setup behind, using twin side rads mounted close to its mid-mounted flat-twelve motor. This meant most of the piping was no longer needed, while the cabin didn’t have to deal with heating issues anymore.
As for the side strakes, these were installed to make sure the car was legal since multiple countries had banned large openings on road vehicles. Besides, who could resist the wide hips layout highlighted by this feature? Apparently, the drift guys who put this example together. Then again, they gifted the supercar with quite a lot of visual spice.
The devil is in the deets
The Shakotan label of the vehicleโthis Japanese tuning style has its roots in the gang-modified cars that used to tear up the streets decades agoโ means this sits wide and low, which this Ferrari easily demonstrates. The microscopic ride height of the Prancing Horse has to be owed to air suspension. And don’t believe those Prancing Horse center caps. These are custom wheels with super-sized lips, which seems to have stretched tires fitted to them.
The front apron and side skirts sport rather clean extensions, but we can’t use the same adjective for the posterior. This is where we find a massive wing, a feature not found on the original car in any form. In fact, the lower part of the Testarossa’s posterior is now open, exposing what appears to be an extreme exhaust setup.
Interestingly, the cabin, which naturally accommodates the gated five-speed manual of the Testarossa, doesn’t seem to sport any mods. So, while this Maranello legend was customized by Japanese drifters, it doesn’t appear to pack a hydraulic handbrake. In other words, it looks more like an extreme street car rather than a slip angle instrument.
