A video of a fake Ferrari bought through Facebook Marketplace is more than a year old, but it continues to circulate online. The car looks like a Ferrari 355, yet underneath its red body sits something much cheaper: a Toyota MR2 Turbo.
The British YouTube channel [Top Dead Center](https://www.youtube.com/@TopDeadC) bought the replica for just £5,000, hoping to see how close it could come to the real thing. From a distance, it had the right shape, wheels, and badges to fool people.
But giving a Toyota the look of a Ferrari came with some strange problems. The car had spent years in storage, and its custom bodywork hid several issues that the team found during their inspection.
There was also the question of Ferrari’s strict approach to protecting its brand. With dozens of Ferrari logos attached to a car that Ferrari never built, the team wondered whether their bargain could attract unwanted attention from the Italian automaker.
A Ferrari Problem
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Ferrari has a history of taking legal action against companies that copy its vehicles. In a 1991 U.S. court case, Ferrari successfully defended its rights to the designs of its Daytona Spyder and Testarossa.
That history caught the team’s attention because their replica was covered in Ferrari branding. After counting the logos on the outside and inside, they found 33.
Even so, the fake Ferrari had a few real parts. Its rear lights came from genuine Ferrari applications, including the 355. The rest of the car was a much stranger mix of Toyota parts and custom work.
Under the Skin
One of the first problems involved the front hood. Opening it required fiddling with a wire, and closing it wasn’t possible while the pop-up headlights were raised.
The rear wheels raised bigger concerns. To make the Toyota’s wheels fit the wider Ferrari-style body, someone had stacked two wheel spacers together. When the team measured them, they found a combined thickness of 80 millimeters.
Water had also found its way into the car. The engine area showed signs of water getting in, while lifting an interior floor mat revealed a wet mess underneath.
Looking below the car brought more bad news. Rust, an oil leak, and a worn exhaust hanger were also found. The team also discovered that what looked like an upgraded Brembo brake component was only a decorative cover.
Would You Believe It?
Despite those problems, the replica looked convincing enough to fool several strangers at a supermarket.
When the team asked people to guess its value, one person estimated £100,000. Others suggested £20,000, £40,000, and £78,000.
None of those guesses came close to the actual £5,000 purchase price.
The final test involved putting the car on a dynamometer to measure its engine output. With a turbocharged Toyota engine under the bodywork, the team hoped it might deliver a pleasant surprise.
Instead, the machine recorded about 170 horsepower, well short of the roughly 375 horsepower produced by a genuine Ferrari F355.
The technician found that the engine sounded healthy and its fueling looked acceptable. The team ended the video discussing plans to return with more power, although the replica had already proved that its Ferrari looks were far more impressive than its performance.