What do you call a remix of a remix? There are quite a few popular formulas for that in the music industry, but none of them seems to offer a dedicated word. So, we’ll have to give you the long take on this 1980s Ferrari, a 512 BBi that became a Koenig Special back in the day and has now been injected with further aftermarket badassery.
While tastes evolve—for one, add-on overfenders are now more popular than molded widebodies—the custom work of Willy Koenig remains some of the most eccentric the exotic and luxury car world has ever seen.
Having built a name for himself in mountain racing starting in the early 1960s, the German enthusiast got a first-hand contact with the world of supercars when Enzo Ferrari, a man who valued motorsport above all else, invited him to Maranello. So perhaps it’s not a coincidence that some of his most popular custom models were based on Prancing Horses.
Case in point with the Ferrari 512 BBi we have here. The standard car, which the Italians built between 1981 and 1984—it was succeeded by the more famous Testarossa—was the final evolution of Ferrari’s first mid-engined road car.
This Ferrari model apparently had a wild story from the get-go
In its factory form, the 4.9L flat-twelve engine, which had switched to fuel injection, made around 340 hp, which was plenty four decades ago. For the record, leaving carbs behind explained the final letter of the name,. As for the origin of the “BB” part, these range from the official “Berlinetta Boxer” to wild stories about the model being named after its muse, French actress Brigitte Bardot. As for the numbers, these indicate the approximate total displacement and the number of cylinders.
Maranello only made a little over 1,000 units of the 512 BBi, but this didn’t stop certain customers from having them fully customized by Koenig. This white example—red is reserved for the cabin—sports a modded front apron, a widebody featuring miniature cheese grater intakes (ah, yes, Testarossa), rear bumper, as well as a rear spoiler and high wing.
Then there’s the pair of turbos strapped to the flat-12 of this Koenig Special, which its customizer claims can be tuned for both road drivability and big-power racing needs.
Big in Japan
This 512 BBi is currently spending its days in Japan, where the vehicle was recently brought about as close to the ground as a Ferrari F1 car. Gifted with Prazis air suspension by a specialist called Madlane, the vehicle also seems to ride on custom wheels that fit the 80s portrait.
And that’s not all. Company founder Kazuki Ohashi, who recently introduced the build on Instagram, calls this “the world’s first intense bagged Koenig 512bbi”. The enthusiast mentions that the vehicle features further “surprises”, albeit without mentioning any details.
The re-modded Italian exotic is also featured on the Instagram page of Liberty Walk founder Wataru Kato (here is his Testarossa kit), but this seems to raise more questions than it answers.
And, until we get our keyboards on more details, you can check out the microscopic tire-fender gaps and the aggressive negative camber angle—especially at the back—of the bagged Ferrari 512 BBi Koenig Special in the images below.
