THERE aren’t many cars more quintessentially 1980s than the Ferrari Testarossa. Its status as the decade’s must-have supercar was cemented on September 26 1986, when America’s hottest TV cops, Crockett and Tubbs, shocked fans by swapping their black Ferrari Daytona Spyder for a gleaming white Testarossa which better matched Don Johnson’s linen suits and dazzling Hollywood gnashers.

In fact, the Daytona convertible was actually a Corvette wearing a custom bodykit: a big ‘no-no’ for design-precious Ferrari, who quickly agreed to supply the Miami Vice producers with their newest model for the third series of the smash hit show – on the proviso its fake predecessor be blown up on-screen.

This dramatic switcheroo occurred just two years after the flat-12 powered Testarossa, its name a nod to Ferrari’s Testa Rossa (‘red head’ in Italian) racers from the 1950s, first shocked and awed car fans on its public debut at the 1984 Paris Auto Salon.

While the wedge was already a popular shape for 1970s sports cars, the Leonardo Fioravanti-led team at Pininfarina brought the design squarely (pun intended) into the 1980s with the slab-like Testarossa, which featured straked radiator vents along its sides – a design cue echoed by horizontal grilles across its enormously wide rear panel – to create a unique and instantly…