Supercars->ke177 aren't typically the best vehicles for long trips through the desert, no matter what the Porsche 959's->ke926 rally successes might have led you to believe. But even if they aren't ideally suited to the situation, there are some that really can handle the trip. This video->ke278 is an extra long episode of Harry's Garage wherein Harry Metcalfe takes his 1987 Ferrari Testarossa->ke2391 on a trip across Morocco to the Sahara. This is actually a repeat of the trip taken by Richard Bremnar of Car magazine in 1995 in a Ferrari 512->ke3524 M, the final evolution of the Testarossa.

It's an interesting idea, and it turns out that there are both some advantages to taking such an old car. Chief among these is that the Testarossa doesn't use the kind of low profile tires that essentially all supercars use today, and that makes it much better on bumpy surfaces. Of course, a 28-year-old Italian car is going to have reliability issues in the best of environments, and this one is no exception. But on the whole, it holds up pretty well.

The trip didn't get off to the best of starts, as Harry tells us that, in his ignorance, picked the wrong ferry. And he does indeed have a bit of trouble with customs, although it ultimately just boils down to having his drone taken away, something had had looked forward to using to photograph the dunes.

Though the trip was ultimately a journey to see the Sahara and its dunes, there were a variety of different terrains which posed their own challenges. From city street and highways packed full of cops ready to pull over anyone who strayed even slightly over the speed limit, to the mountain pass with trucks that made the drive both more dangerous and more tedious. The contrast of the snow in the mountains followed by the desert immediately afterward was quite interesting. There was even a bit of wide open rocky terrain that looked like the Grand Canyon, and has been used by film studios to depict all sorts of different places. And after all of that, Harry would still have to worry about a disputed border, potentially littered with land mines. He obviously lives though the experience, as this would be pretty grim if he didn't, but the trip contains some elements you might not expect to see.

Ferrari Testarossa

Read our full review here.