Red Alert

Scottish mountain roads, alive with the sound of an F355’s flat-plane-crank V8… If you like your red cars compact, lithe and gorgeous, it doesn’t get much better than this

- Adam Towler

THE CAIRNGORMS MUST SURELY BE ONE OF THE most beautiful places on the planet. Whether you’re standing in the shadow of Braemar Castle, dazzled by the sunlight dancing off the River Dee or, like today, on a surprisingly brisk autumnal morning, high up in the mountains with the impression of standing on top of the world, it’s utterly captivating. No wonder the Queen likes to spend time here. You would, too, and for one other significant reason that I suspect we’d have no trouble agreeing on: the Old Military Road, a spectacular ribbon of asphalt that runs up the spine of this National Park. It has everything you’ve ever dreamed of in a road.

Today, however, the scenery has competition. It’s in the form of an unfashionably small, low, red projectile that’s disarmingly handsome. As far as the subjects of ‘Icon’ features go, few are more worthy than Ferrari’s glorious F355 – a pivotal machine in the history of the most famous car company of them all.

‘Want One’, screamed the cover of the July 1994 issue of Performance Car magazine (evo’s forefather) as it clanked through our letter box. I reached it before the dog, clocked the ‘Ferrari’s £84,000 bargain’ sub-heading with mouth agape, then read and re-read the feature aboard the bus bound for secondary school. From that day onwards, I have lusted after this relatively simple supercar, watched values plummet but still remain out of reach, and then seen those prices accelerate away once again. Despite these towering expectations, driving one has never been a disappointment. Today, on this road, I’m genuinely fearful the needle on the evo meter might bend and break against the stop.