One Man, One Red Ferrari And A Childhood Dream Coming True

A red Ferrari, the top down, and the whole day to play. It’s what dreams are made of

- Sirish Chandran

What did you dream of while growing up? Since you’re reading this magazine I’m guessing it had something to do with a car or a bike. Me? I dreamt of the red Ferrari on my wall. Okay, I’m still dreaming of that particular red Ferrari — it was the F40, and I still haven’t even sat in one, let alone drive one — but this is close.

It’s a very, very early morning, coffee in hand, a red Ferrari being fired up and gingerly rolled down a flat-bed transporter. “You’ve driven it, haven’t you,” asks the man from Ferrari Mumbai. I nod. “So I don’t need to tell you what is what. Here’s the keys, she’s all warmed up, have fun.”

And that’s that. I have the keys and all day to play. To borrow a phrase, this isn’t my first rodeo; neither is this my first Ferrari nor is this my first time with the Portofino, having spent two days with it on the Italian Riviera (from where it gets its name) exactly a year ago. But there’s something special about having a Ferrari to yourself, on roads you know like the back of your hand, and with no restrictions. You will not believe the kind of mileage caps we have to fight against, sometimes even time constraints. Today there’s nothing of the sort except our word not to juice it with rubbish fuel since we are at least 150km away from high octane petrol. A full tank of gas then, all day (or until we run out of gas) and this is how we spent it:

The sunrise