1987 Ferrari Testarossa

We bought the Testarossa on a Tuesday and drove it to Big Sur on the Wednesday. That tells you everything you need to know about what it does to you. Rosso Corsa over tan leather, flat-12 behind your shoulders, and a gated shifter that demands you earn every gear — this was the car that started everything. The side strakes, the wide haunches, the flying buttress mirrors: it looked like a poster come to life, and then you turned the key and realised the poster had been underselling it. On Highway 1 with the windows down and the flat-12 building toward its crescendo, we understood for the first time what it meant to drive a car rather than simply operate one. We put thousands of miles on it — canyon roads, coastal highways, a few car shows where we barely made it through the car park without stopping every thirty feet — and every single mile felt like a privilege. It passed on to a new home eventually, but the sound of that engine is still with us.