Every red-blooded revhead has dreamt of taking an exotic car out on the open road and absolutely caning it. One Australian Ferrari owner, however, just turned his dreams into reality – and paid one hell of a price for his hedonism.
A 42-year-old Sydney man has been charged by NSW Police after he was allegedly caught travelling at more than 200km/h in an unregistered Ferrari Portofino in The Hume region last Friday. The Hume Highway Patrol allegedly clocked him doing 204km/h in a 110km sign-posted area on the Hume Highway near Goulburn just after 7am.
Police chased the driver down and issued him with a Court Attendance Notice for driving a vehicle recklessly/furiously or speed/manner dangerous, exceeding the speed limit by over 45kph, and using an unregistered vehicle, with the punter due to face Goulburn Local Court on Wednesday 29th June.
His NSW driver’s licence has been suspended and his vehicle confiscated for three months, unsurprisingly. We’re just glad no one ended up wrapping their car around a tree, like this poor bloke on the Gold Coast did with his Ferrari F40.
First released in 2017, the Portofino is a V8-powered hardtop convertible that succeeded the Italian marque’s previous V8 grand tourer, the California T.
Standard models make 441kW, but the hotter Portofino M (M for Modificata or Modified) makes 456kW. Ferrari Australia currently only offer the Portofino M for sale: considering this car was unregistered with no plates, we reckon it’s a recently-purchased Portofino M.
RELATED: Fed-Up Ferrari Blacklists Justin Bieber For Automotive ‘Sins’
We don’t condone speeding at all, but at least our Ferrari driver had the courtesy to do it in the early hours of the morning as well as outside of Sydney… Although we doubt Goulburn locals would take kindly to some city slicker caning it down their roads.
204km/h is by no means the fastest someone’s gone on NSW roads, however. The driver of a Mercedes-Benz GLC-Class was caught doing 244km/h in an 80 zone back in 2020. More on that here.
The fastest anyone’s gone down the Hume was journalist Mel Nichols who, back in 1971 rocketed a Ford XY Falcon GTHO Phase III at well over 140mph (225km/h), famously captured by photographer Uwe Kuessner.
Another journo, freelancer Rod Easdown, holds the record for the fastest speeding ticket issued in Australia to a Ferrari driver after he was caught going 231km/h in a Ferrari California near Perth back in 2009. The stunt saw him lose his licence and his job; cop more than $2,000 in fines and court costs, and got him the label “the oldest hoon in Australia”. Ooft.
Read Next