Ever since I first found out about Garage Saurus’s hyper-tuned Ferrari F550 Maranello on my friend Jay’s blog earlier this year, I’ve been somewhat obsessed with it.

After recently running into more information and photos, I’m going to make a couple of new posts in the upcoming week with new pictures that I hadn’t seen before. I’ll introduce the pictures in my own style, explaining a bit about what make them particularly special from my perspective.

As this blog’s goal is to get people to experience new ideas and new thoughts (AKA inspiration), this demo car of Saurus’s has opened my eyes as well.

I just want to talk about one modification and one idea for today…

Here’s what you’re looking at: The upper section of that rear bumper is an original/stock bumper from Ferrari. Those two openings you see on the sides are where the exhaust usually would be placed on the normal cars. Now on this particular car which is highly tuned (Twin Turbo V12 Engine), it has exceptional needs for improved cooling. So what did Garage Saurus come up with? Perhaps one of the most brilliant and cleanly executed modifications in cooling I’ve ever seen. Look inside…

Already having air flow exit holes in the rear bumper, Garage Saurus saw those as an opportunity to flush mount Setrab oil coolers to them. Then they went about creating a one-off center exit exhaust, which they designed along with a one-off carbon fiber under diffuser to house the center exit tips. If that isnt brilliant execution, I dont know what is. I just wish I had an idea like that first!

There’s the finished product of that exhaust/oil cooler/rear bumper/diffuser conversion. So clean that you probably wouldnt even think about it…and thats the point. Brilliance in the details.

Its details like this that make me love Japanese tuning. Stuff so smart and so beautifully executed that it just makes you appreciate that there is:

1. Someone with enough money AND good taste to buy a Ferrari 550 and actually know who to bring it to for their vision to be executed.

2. A tuning shop with enough understanding of functional artistry to build something as flawless as this on all levels.

I will be talking more about this car for sure…For me, it is becoming one of my favorite Japanese tuned cars of all time. And that’s saying a lot coming from me because I don’t like red cars at all. Gimme this car in Porsche GT3 black/orange color combo and I’d be all set! (gloss black exterior, orange roll cage, black rims with orange highlights and a couple of minimal orange graphics)