Designer Reimagines the Ferrari 849 Testarossa With the Design It Should Have HadFerrari reviving the Testarossa name last September was always going to invite scrutiny. The 849 – a 1,036-horsepower plug-in hybrid berlinetta with performance numbers that beggar belief – is an extraordinary machine on paper. It covers 0–62 mph in under 2.3 seconds and laps Fiorano in 1:17.5. But when fans looked at it side-by-side with the iconic 1984 original, the name felt like it was doing more work than the styling. The flanks, the stance, the whole visual identity of that original car felt underrepresented. Manchester-based CGI artist Khyzyl Saleem, known to us as The Kyza, decided to do something about it.Saleem – a self-taught 3D concept artist with over a decade of design experience, whose credits include the hero car bodykitfor Need for Speed: Heat – posted the results to social media this week. The response was heavily positive. Rendered in Ferrari red against hard blue-concrete lighting, the five-panel presentation looks less like a casual fan exercise and more like something that belongs on a wall at Maranello.What Saleem Actually Changed"I wanted to use Ferrari's current design language as the foundation (there's definitely a bit of SP3 in there), but reinterpret it in a way that, to me, felt more deserving of the Testarossa name," Saleem wrote in his caption. The Daytona SP3 influence is visible in the proportions – a low nose, a dramatically raked windscreen, and rear haunches that tower over the front end, giving the concept the planted, prototype-racer quality Ferrari reserved for its most theatrical limited-run specials.AdvertisementAdvertisementThe front end is cleaner than anything in Ferrari's current portfolio: a broad red nose broken only by slim horizontal lighting, a narrow intake strip running across the lower fascia, and a deep carbon-fibre splitter. It strips back the aggressive surface complexity of the factory car and replaces it with something more resolved.The masterstroke is the flanks. Rather than reproducing the 1984 Testarossa's iconic side strakes literally, Saleem reinterprets them as deep horizontal channels carved into the rear quarter panels, funnelling air rearward toward the engine bay. The ribbed silhouette is unmistakably Testarossa without being a pastiche."That mostly meant bringing back some of my favourite elements from the original Testarossa and blending them into Ferrari's newer proportions. It was less about replacing the design and more about imagining a different direction," Saleem explained.At the rear, a broad horizontal black panel houses slim red lighting elements, with two large circular exhaust outlets sitting low inside a substantial diffuser. The wheel choice adds another period note: HRE Vintage 505s, five thick silver spokes with polished lips, evoking the wheel designs associated with Ferrari's 1980s and 1990s output without directly copying the original. "The Vintage HRE Performance Wheels 505s ended up fitting the whole car perfectly too. I actually like the 849 as it is, it's an aggressive-looking thing, but I couldn't resist putting my own spin on it," Saleem noted. The whole thing was modelled in 3DS Max and rendered in Corona, per the artist.AdvertisementAdvertisementThere was also a personal dimension to the project. "It's also worth mentioning that Kavinsky's unfortunate passing inspired me to create a new poster featuring a fresh interpretation of the original. A very sad loss," Saleem wrote, referencing the electronic music producer whose work became synonymous with neon-era supercar nostalgia. A separate homage is apparently in progress.The 849 Testarossa underneath this concept is a genuinely remarkable car – its twin-turbocharged 4.0-litre V8 now produces 819 horsepower on its own, paired with a trio of electric motors for a combined system output of over 1,036 horsepower through all four wheels, with production set to begin at Maranello in 2026. Saleem isn't arguing it's slow. He's arguing it could have looked more like its name. Looking at these renders, it's hard to disagree.