Ferrari Testa Rossa J review: Pint-sized electric tribute driven

You could dismiss the Ferrari Testa Rossa J as the ultimate, money-no-object Christmas present for the rich kid who has everything. But that would be selling it short. The $150,000 (plus tax and shipping) electric-powered Testa Rossa J is a Ferrari-approved three-quarter scale replica of one of Maranello’s most iconic sports racers, right down to its tubular steel chassis and hand-formed aluminium bodywork.

It’s a beautiful little jewel of a thing. And while it looks toy-like, it’s nothing like a toy to drive. It’ll hit 80km/h, has four-wheel disc brakes with Ducati calipers, the same suspension geometry as the original 250 TR, and runs on proper Pirelli tyres.

Ferrari built 33 full-size 250 TRs between 1957 and 1961, and they pretty much won everything worth winning in international sports car racing, taking victory three times in both the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the 12 Hours of Sebring, and winning the 1958 Targa Florio, among others.

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The 250 GTO is reckoned to be the most valuable classic Ferrari, but the 250 TR, especially the 1957 version with its distinctive ‘pontoon’ front guards, runs it a close second. In 2011 the original 1957 TR prototype changed hands for more than $23 million.

Against that background, the limited edition Testa Rossa J – just 299 will be made – looks a bargain. For well-heeled Ferrari collectors, at least.

The Testa Rossa J is the third car from The Little Car Company. Based at Bicester Heritage, north of London, The Little Car Company makes – as its name implies – a little cars. Special and expensive little cars.

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It’s a beautiful little jewel of a thing. And while it looks toy-like, it’s nothing like a toy to drive. It’ll hit 80km/h, has four-wheel disc brakes with Ducati calipers, the same suspension geometry as the original 250 TR, and runs on proper Pirelli tyres.

Founded in 2018 by self-described ‘serial entrepreneur’ Ben Hedley, The Little Car Company got its start when, to celebrate the marque’s 110th anniversary, Bugatti asked it to create a modern version of the Bugatti Baby, the half-scale Type 35 built in Molsheim in 1926 as a fourth birthday present for Ettore Bugatti’s youngest son, Roland.

Hedley’s proposal differed from the original in one key respect: The Little Car company Bugatti Baby II, which ranges in price from $48,000 to $93,000 (plus tax and shipping) is a three-quarter scale car. “I wanted something that adults as well as children would be able to drive,” he says. Just 500 are being built.

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The launch of Bugatti Baby II was followed in 2020 by the reveal of the kid-sized Aston Martin DB5 Junior, which can be ordered in more powerful Vantage specification or as the 007-worthy No Time To Die Edition complete with fake machine guns behind the headlights, switchable license plates, and a smoke machine at the rear of the car.

The Testa Rossa J was created using data from original drawings in the archives of Ferrari’s Classiche Department in Maranello. Its tubular steel chassis is a precisely scaled-down replica of the full-size original.

The suspension features Bilstein coilover shocks and Eibach springs, and the Pirelli tires on the handmade 12-inch wire wheels (genuine Borrani wire wheels are available as an option) are the same size as those used on another Italian automotive icon, the original Fiat Cinquecento built from 1957 to 1975. The bodywork has the exact proportions of the original 250 Testa Rossa and is made the same way. 

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The Prancing Horse badge on the front of the Testa Rossa J is the genuine item, and the accelerator and brake pedals are from the F8 Tributo.

An online car configurator allows customers to choose from 14 historical liveries, 53 bodywork colours and additional personalized racing liveries, all rendered in the same paint used on Ferrari road cars. The bench seat is trimmed in factory Ferrari leather.

The vintage-style three-spoke wood-rim steering wheel is from Nardi, which supplied steering wheels for the original 250 TRs, and while the gauges on the instrument panel have been repurposed for use in an electric car, they feature the same design and fonts used back in 1957.

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The Nardi wheel has a quick-release mechanism that enables it to be removed so adults can clamber into the cockpit. On the centre of the dash is what looks like a Manettino from a modern Ferrari. It’s where the key to start the car is inserted, and twisting it activates four different drive modes.

Powering the Testa Rossa J is a 12kW electric motor mounted at the rear and driving the rear wheels. The motor is fed by three 2kW/hr batteries mounted up front that deliver up to 90 kilometres of range and can be recharged in four hours.

Novice Mode, designed to allow children to be able to learn to drive the Testa Rossa J in safety, restricts the e-motor’s output to 1kW and the top speed to 20km/h and will automatically shut down the car if it travels beyond a certain distance from a hand-held key fob.

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Comfort Mode increases the e-motor’s output to 4kW and allows speeds of up to 45km/h, Sport Mode takes it to 10kW and allows up to 80km/h, and Race Mode to boosts output to 12kW for even sharper acceleration.

This is no glorified golf cart: The Testa Rossa J weighs just 260kg and in Race Mode has a weight-to-power ratio 3.7 times better than the quirky, road-legal, electric powered Citroën Ami city car, and almost twice the top speed.

And while 80km/h doesn’t exactly sound Ferrari-fast, when your head and torso are out in the freezing slipstream of a British winter’s day, it certainly feels it. 

More importantly, though, the Testa Rossa J isn’t just a point-it-and-plant-it drive experience. Push it through the corners and you’ll feel the roll in the suspension and the compliance in the tires.

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It really feels like an old front-engine sports car; it likes to be braked early, settled, then turned in, with the power fed in early to get the weight transfer to the rear axle.

“We thought you were bringing us a toy, but you’ve brought us a real car,” Ben Hedley says Ferrari execs told him when he showed them the prototype.

At Ferrari’s request, the Testa Rossa J has a genuine Ferrari VIN plate. It also asked that The Little Car Company remove its own logos from the car.

“They’ve told us this is the first Ferrari ever made outside Maranello,” says Hedley. “That’s quite a compliment.”

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