This is a Ferrari F355 V8 engine that has been transformed into a glass-topped coffee table and installed on discreet wheels to make it easy to move around when required.
The Ferrari F355 is rapidly becoming a modern classic, offering a largely analogue driving experience. These care are much sought after now for their V8 character and for that 1990s-styling that’s rapidly becoming retro.
The Ferrari F355 is rapidly becoming a modern classic, offering a largely analogue driving experience. These care are much sought after now for their V8 character and for that 1990s-styling that’s rapidly becoming retro. Image courtesy of Ferrari.
History Speedrun: The Ferrari F355 V8 Engine
The 3.5 liter V8 engine that powered the Ferrari F355 was closely based on the 3.4 liter V8 unit that had powered its immediately predecessor, the Ferrari F348. Truth be told, this engine had history that stretched back a whole lot farther, right back to the first 90º V8 used in the Ferrari 308 GTB back in the mid-1970s.
This Ferrari V8 sits in the same overarching family tree as the engines that powered the 288 GTO and F40. The F355 version of the engine, designated the Tipo F129B, was given a raft of major technological upgrades over what had come before, the most obvious of which is the new five-valve heads – three for intake and two for exhaust – to replace the older four-valve heads.
This new five-valve version of the engine was named “cinquevalvole” in Italian, meaning five-valve, further proving that every single car part you can think of sounds so much better when translated into Italian.
The engine was stroked 2mm over for a slight displacement increase, but it contained a range of more significant upgrades, including titanium alloy connecting rods that allowed a new redline of 8,500 rpm – a heady figure for a V8 in the 1990s.
Tipo F129B also had a a forged steel flat-plane crankshaft, forged aluminum alloy pistons with low-tension rings to reduce friction, and cast aluminum alloy for the engine block and heads as with earlier engines.
Power was increased to 375 bhp at 8,250 rpm, up from 296 bhp in the F348, a 27% power boost that was immediately noticeable when driving one car after the other. The F355 would be built from 1995 until 1999 when it was replaced with the Ferrari 360 Modena.
The Ferrari F355 V8 Coffee Table Shown Here
The coffee table you see here is built around the Tipo 129B flat plane V8 engine from a Ferrari F355, with the transaxle casing still in place.
The coffee table is fitted to four small caster wheels that allow it to be moved around when required, and it has a glass top that measures in at 135 cm by 100 cm, or 53 inches by 39 inches. There are cutouts in the glass surface that allow the velocity stacks to rise above.
It’s fitted to four small caster wheels that allow it to be moved around when required, and it has a glass top that measures in at 135 cm by 100 cm, or 53 inches by 39 inches. There are cutouts in the glass surface that allow the velocity stacks to rise above.
This unusual coffee table is now due to roll across the auction block with RM Sotheby’s in a shipping crate for easy transportation, and you can visit the listing here if you’d like to read more about it or register to bid.
Images courtesy of RM Sotheby’s
Articles that Ben Branch 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.
