This is coffee table built around a Tipo F131 3.6 liter V8 engine from a Ferrari 360 Modena, along with its F1-style gearbox, and it has a two-tiered tempered glass tabletop.
Coffee tables like this have become increasingly popular in recent years as they offer both a functional use, and an excellent conversation piece right in the center of your living room. Perhaps the only downside is that they tend to be slightly heavier than your average Ikea coffee table.
The Ferrari 360 Modena was a clean sheet design with an advanced all-new aluminum chassis, it was designed to take Ferrari into the 21st century and it certainly succeed, with over 16,300 units sold worldwide. Image courtesy of Ferrari.
Ferrari 360 Modena
The Ferrari 360 Modena entered production in 1999 as a new Ferrari for the fast approaching new millennium. Unlike many of its Prancing Horse predecessors with their steel chassis, the 360 had an all-new aluminum frame that was both 40% stiffer and 28% lighter than the outgoing Ferrari 355 chassis – it was also impervious to rust.
Earlier Ferraris had come under much criticism by their owners for requiring costly maintenance that seemed almost designed to rack up the hours in dealerships or specialist mechanical workshops. One famous example being that the engine needs to be removed from the car to have the timing belts changed on the Ferrari 348, F355, and the Testarossa.
In the 360 Modena, the timing belt replacement could be done relatively quickly with the engine still in the car, saving owners thousands of dollars in maintenance costs.
The engine in the 360 was the Ferrari Tipo F131, a dry sump 3.6 liter 90° V8 producing 400 bhp at 8,500 rpm. This engine has an aluminum alloy block and heads, a flat-plane crankshaft, titanium connecting rods, double overhead cams per bank, and an unusual 5-valve per cylinder arrangement.
Unusually for an engine-based coffee table, this one has the transmission still attached and integrated into the design.
Power was sent back through either a gated 6-speed manual gearbox, or the electrohydraulic-actuated 6-speed “F1” Graziano automated manual transmission with paddle shifters on the steering wheel. This later option proved popular with buyers, and it would be a sign of things to come for Ferrari and all the major supercar manufacturers.
The Ferrari 360 Modena, as well as the 360 Spider (convertible), and higher-performance Challenge Stradale variant would be built well into the early 2000s before the model family was replaced by the F430 series.
Ferrari would build 8,800 Modenas and 7,565 Spiders in total, making it one of the most mass-produced Ferraris in history up until that point.
The 360 Modena V8 Engine Coffee Table Shown Here
The coffee table you see here has been built around the removed engine and transmission from a 360 Modena. Unusually, it includes both the engine and the F1-style semi-automatic manual transmission still bolted together.
The cockpit of the 360 Modena offered dual bucket seats with ample bolsters, some space in the rear for luggage, and your choice of either a 6-speed gated manual or an F1-style paddle shift semi-automatic.
The table has a two-tier tempered glass tabletop with an upper tabletop surface measuring 170 cm by 100 cm, rising to 67.5 cm above the surface. The total weight of the whole assembly is 220 kgs (485 lbs), this is lighter than it could otherwise be, as the internal moving parts of the engine have all been removed to reduce its weight.
This unusual coffee table is now due to be auctioned by RM Sotheby’s in Milan on the 22nd of May with a price guide of $16,000 – $27,000 USD. If you’d like to read more about it or register to bid you can visit the listing here.
Images courtesy of RM Sotheby’s
Articles that Ben has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
