Touring Superleggera's stunning Ferrari 550 restomod has lost its roof
A 1990s Ferrari icon reborn as a coachbuilt open-top work of art
Italian coachbuilder Touring Superleggera has done something wonderful: taken the gloriously analogue Ferrari 550 Maranello and reimagined it as a bespoke, open-top grand tourer. The new Veloce12 Aperta drops the roof on its 550-based Veloce12, and it might be the most beautiful way yet to celebrate a front-engined Ferrari V12.
Built on a true modern classic
The Veloce12 is not based on a current Ferrari but on the Ferrari 550 Maranello, the late-1990s front-engined V12 GT that has become a bona fide modern classic. Customers supply their own 550 as a donor, and Touring rebodies and re-engineers it. The Aperta keeps the heart of what made the 550 special: a 5.5-litre V12 of around 500 hp driving the rear wheels through a proper manual gearbox. In an age of turbocharged, paddle-shift everything, that is a deliberate and very welcome choice.
How the open top works
Rather than a folding soft-top, the Aperta uses a targa-style arrangement: manually removable roof panels paired with a sculpted aluminium roll hoop behind the seats and a glass tonneau cover. The body is made from carbon fibre, helping keep weight down while allowing Touring's designers to reshape the 550 into something altogether more dramatic. It sits alongside the existing Veloce12 Coupe, available since 2024, and a fully convertible Spider.
Analogue on purpose
Inside, Touring has resisted the urge to modernise everything. The Veloce12 Aperta keeps analogue instrumentation rather than large digital screens, in keeping with the spirit of its donor car. The first example pairs a white exterior with a split burgundy-and-white interior inspired by a Maserati 3500 GT colour scheme, a lovely period-correct touch. Mechanical upgrades include a Supersprint exhaust, Brembo brakes and TracTive suspension, sharpening the 550 without diluting its character.
Exclusivity and price
This is strictly low-volume work. The Veloce12 line is limited to around 30 examples across all its body styles, and the coachbuilding alone costs roughly €690,000, on top of the donor Ferrari 550 the customer has to provide. That makes it a hugely expensive way to own a 550, but then it is no longer really a 550: it is a one-of-a-kind Touring Superleggera, hand-built to the owner's taste.
AutoNext Take
This is our kind of madness. Rather than chasing horsepower, Touring has taken one of the last truly analogue Ferrari GTs and made it more beautiful, more exclusive and open to the sky, while keeping the manual V12 exactly as it should be. The decision to base it on the 550 rather than a modern Ferrari is what makes it special: this celebrates an era of driving that is rapidly disappearing. It costs supercar money on top of an already valuable classic, but for the handful of people who get one, the Veloce12 Aperta is about as pure and personal as a modern Ferrari-based car can be.
