Gas Monkey's Six-Wheel Ferrari Almost Died in Another Shop's Hands. Here's the Real Story Behind the F6Gas Monkey Garage has finally rolled out the Ferrari F6, a six-wheel, supercharged build that took more than two years of delays, redesigns, and fabrication headaches to finish. Richard Rawlings and his crew have unveiled the completed car, and the story behind it is messier than the finished product suggests. Before the F6 ever turned a wheel, it had to survive a failed outside build that left it crooked, oversized, and allegedly unsafe to drive hard.The car started life as a real VIN-bearing project based on a Ferrari Testarossa. What it became is something else entirely. The finished F6 is a six-wheel machine with four driven rear wheels and an American V8 where Italian hardware used to live. Rawlings has called it one of the craziest projects Gas Monkey Garage has ever completed, and for a shop that built its name on loud, expensive, attention-grabbing cars, that statement carries weight.What the F6 Actually IsThis is not a static showpiece with extra wheels bolted on for shock value. Gas Monkey says the F6 is fully functional and track tested, with real power going to the ground through its unusual rear layout. The shop set out to build something impossible to ignore, and it wanted the car to back up the looks with actual performance.AdvertisementAdvertisementPower comes from a supercharged GM-based LT4 427 cubic inch engine, a deliberately wild choice for anything wearing Ferrari bones. That V8 feeds all four rear wheels through a custom drivetrain. The build also carries custom suspension geometry, Wilwood brakes, one-off center-lock wheels, and a massive rear wing designed specifically for this car. Inside, the cabin reportedly draws inspiration from the Ferrari F40, which keeps at least a loose thread connecting the F6 to Ferrari's own supercar history.The First Version Was a MessHere's the part that matters. The F6 was not built start to finish at Gas Monkey. The project originally went to a third-party fabrication shop, and that relationship fell apart over missed deadlines and serious build quality problems.When the car came back to Gas Monkey, the team found trouble everywhere they looked. The rear structure was out of square. Parts were poorly installed. The body had been built too wide, and some mechanical components were allegedly unsafe or mismatched. None of that is cosmetic nitpicking. Those are structural and mechanical failures on a car designed to make serious power.The rear differential setup was one of the worst surprises. The team claimed the wrong gear ratios and rusty components could have caused a major drivetrain failure if the car had ever been driven hard. On a six-wheel build with four driven rear wheels, that is exactly the kind of failure that ends badly.AdvertisementAdvertisementThe finish was its own problem. Rawlings wanted the glossy Rosso Corsa look from the original rendering. The car arrived wearing matte paint, bedliner, and glitter instead. That detail says plenty about how far off the rails the outside build had gone.Gas Monkey Basically Started OverOnce the car was back in house, the job stopped being a finishing project and turned into a rescue. The team squared the chassis, narrowed the body, reworked the rear structure, redesigned key components, and rebuilt nearly every major system on the car. That is not touch-up work. That is starting over with a damaged foundation.The rear wing became a defining piece of the rebuild. Gas Monkey 3D scanned the back of the car, modeled the wing digitally, cut test pieces, and kept refining the shape until it matched the aggressive look Rawlings wanted from the start. The wing does more than look mean. It visually balances proportions that could have looked awkward with six wheels, and it pushes the car fully into supercar fantasy territory instead of leaving it stuck halfway.It Actually Runs, and Runs HardFor all the drama, the most important detail is that the finished car reportedly works. Gas Monkey says the F6 drives, turns, and accelerates hard. It has air conditioning and a stereo, and it can lay down four-wheel rear burnouts. The crew also claims the car surprised them during track testing, proving quick in a straight line and more capable through corners than a six-wheel custom drivetrain had any right to be.What Comes NextRawlings and business partner John Clay Wolfe have not locked in the car's future. They have discussed campaigning the F6 publicly, showing it in major cities, and possibly sending it across an auction block down the road. There is precedent for big money here. Gas Monkey's earlier six-wheel Hummer reportedly sold for huge numbers at Barrett-Jackson, and that sale helped fund the Ferrari project in the first place.AdvertisementAdvertisementWhether the F6 becomes an auction headliner or stays a rolling calling card for the shop, the mission is already accomplished. The car is loud, excessive, and impossible to look away from. The harder truth sits underneath the spectacle. This build nearly died in someone else's shop, and it only exists because the team that commissioned it was willing to tear it apart and do the work right.SourceImage Credit: Gas Monkey Garage.
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