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Ferrari 412 picks up a teak cargo bed

While marques like Porsche and Lamborghini having already branched out into SUVs, with Bentley and Maserati soon to follow, Ferrari remains one of the few high-end automakers that refuses, for better or worse, to follow suit. But the boys in Maranello never said anything about a pickup.
That's precisely what we have here, although as you might have guessed, this was not (unlike the similar treatment BMW applied to the previous M3) a factory-authorized conversion. Instead it was undertaken by the London Motor Group, parent company to the London Motor Museum and London Supercar Workshop. It's based on a late-80s Ferrari 412, the 2+2 coupe that preceded the 456 GT, which in turn was replaced by the 612 Scaglietti and then the FF, itself Ferrari's first hatchback. In other words, it comes from a line that was ripe to mark a first in terms of Ferrari body-styles.
The one-off retains the 4.9-liter V12 and just about everything forward of the cabin. But behind it's got a three-foot pickup bed lined in teak. The London outfit also gave it a twin-barrel hood scoop, variable exhaust and a custom Bang & Olufsen sound system to round it out. The vehicle is set to feature on the History Channel's Ultimate Wheels, alongside a VW camper, Ford Mustang, Group B-inspired Audi and a unique Bristol.

Meet the man that discovered and restored the oldest existing Porsche

Luciano Rupolo is an absolutely fascinating gentleman. He was born in France but spent nearly his entire life in Italy as an auto mechanic running his own shop. His grandfather and father instilled a love of sports cars in him that he carried on by historic racing in Italy for decades. He saw his life-long automotive passion repaid when he found and restored the car that might have been the first Porsche registered for the road.
You can spot in his garage a split-window Corvette, Ferrari 250 GTE and other exotics, but Rupolo's most interesting automotive story concerns his Iso Grifo Competizione (pictured above). The sports coupe was found in the Canary Islands as little more than a shell, but Rupolo got help from a prestigious source for its restoration. The result is a motoring masterpiece.
Rupolo is a fantastic storyteller with a captivating, tale to tell. Settle in, scroll down and watch the bittersweet documentary about his life with one of the first Porsches.

Hot Wheels loses Ferrari diecast contract to Chinese company

If you're anything like this writer, chances are you've got a diecast model or two kicking around the house. And if one of those models replicates a Ferrari, chances are it's made by Hot Wheels. The Mattel brand secured an exclusive contract from the Maranello automaker in the late 1990s, but the latest word from Hemmings has it that Ferrari has ended its partnership with Hot Wheels and awarded it instead to the May Cheong Group. Unless you're an avid diecast collector, you may not have heard of May Cheong, but you may have heard of its brands Maisto and Bburago. Both brands are longtime players in the model car market, but it's the Bburago part of the deal that's particularly interesting. Founded in Italy, Bburago made a name for itself largely due to the scale Ferrari models it made back in the day. But when the Prancing Horse marque awarded the exclusive contract to Mattel, and with increasing competition from the Far East, Bburago collapsed. May Cheong swept in and scooped it up, and now the Italian model brand, along with its onetime rival Maisto, will be producing diecast Ferraris once again. Whether Bburago will use any of its old tooling to resume production of Ferrari scale models or start from scratch with all-new equipment remains to be seen, as does the matter of whether either it or Maisto will be able to produce the same quality of models as Hot Wheels has with some of its higher-end offerings. Like most collectors, this writer's looking forward to finding out. Looks like it's time to buy another display case.