Jannarelly brings coachbuilding back with £725,000 Ferrari 360 rebody

“A few years ago, I tried to design, build and market my own sportscar, because I thought I could offer an alternative to today’s supercars, which lack purity and soul,” he said. “I succeeded, as evidenced by the Jannarelly Design-1 cars circulating worldwide. However, this adventure was never financially viable, because I came up against insoluble complications linked to the marketing and homologation of the car. With this experience, my team and I found a solution to bypass these difficulties.” The school of hard knocks provides the best education.

Jannarelly’s response was to take inspiration from the burgeoning retromod scene, and the new Ælla-60 from Art Machines by Anthony Jannarelly is the result.

It takes a homologated car as its basis and gives it a bespoke restyle, offering old-school dynamics with a fresh appearance. Just 60 will be built. To us, it sounds more like coachbuilding, but let’s not split hairs. Ælla, by the way, was the King of Northumberland from AD 867 to 867 and, no, we don’t know the correct pronunciation. We’d suggest saying it with a North-Eastern accent and hoping for the best.

The concept is not a million miles from that of the Radford 62-2, the key difference being that the Ælla-60 doesn’t take its styling inspiration from any one source which is why it feels more like a coachbuild than restomod. The Jannarelly draws from a number of 1960s sources without plagiarising any one particular car or updating the car on which it’s based.

Another way in which it differs from the Radford is that the latter used a factory-fresh Exige chassis and running gear. The Ælla-60 has no affiliation to an OEM, and it’s based on a sportscar from the 1990s, so we’re back into restomod territory. Let’s just say it’s a grey area. Art Machines doesn’t disclose the platform, but the aluminium chassis and naturally-aspirated 3.6-litre V8 engine producing 486PS (357kW) points towards the Ferrari 360. As does the fact that the engine looks like that from a 360.

There aren’t any other visual clues, though. The rolling curves – Jannarelly calls it ‘retrofuturistic’ – owe nothing to Maranello, and the gullwing doors grant access to a cabin that is equally distinct from anything you can recognise from the base car. The Ælla-60’s aesthetic certainly had Anthony Jannarelly’s signature. It looks similar in style to the aforementioned Design-1 and the Caterham Project V, which also came from his pen.

Art Machines is waiting for five buyers to confirm orders before giving the green light to production. Italian firm Podium Advanced Technologies is being teed up to manufacture the car, and already has experience in the field with the Glickenhaus SCG 007C, Lancia Delta Futurista, Eccentrica Diablo and Porsche 928 Nardone. Early adopters will have access to the engineering team and be involved during the development phase, with construction beginning in 2026.

And the price for a limited-run coachbuilt Ferrari? If you’re hoping for it to be close to the £90,000 of the Design-1, you’re in for a disappointment. The Ælla-60 is being offered at €865,000 (or around £725,000) – for which you could buy a dozen Ferrari 360s. But then that’s not really the point, is it?