Spirits of the Dead

“Toby Dammit” is a Fellini short film originally released in 1968 as part of Histoires extraordinaires. This gets a bit complicated so bear with me… Histoires extraordinaires was a multi-segment art-house horror film from three different directors — each of whom created a short film based on an Edgar Allen Poe poem. The two segments from Louis Malle and Roger Vadim are entertaining, but the real draw is Federico Fellini’s adaptation of Poe’s 1841 poem, “Never the Bet the Devil Your Head.” Titled “Toby Dammit”, Fellini created a hallucinogenic tale of an unstable and alcoholic Shakespearean actor who agrees to go to perform in Rome on the condition he’s given a Ferrari. The film is only loosely based on Poe’s story, but Fellini’s self-destruction and decadence works surprisingly well with Poe’s morbidity. The “Toby Dammit” segment was hailed upon the original release, but the overall project was forgotten as a commercial failure based on the overall omnibus project.

This incredible Japanese B2 is one of the only posters to feature Fellini’s famed “Golden Ferrari” so prominently — and in the correct color! For all you gear heads, the Ferrari used in the film was a one-off creation from Carrozzeria Fantuzzi made specifically for the film. It was based on a 330 LMB chassis and had a unique open-roof, frameless-windshield design. In 2008 the Ferrari Special Projects division began work on a one-off car called the P540 Superfast Aperta, based on a 599GTB and inspired by Fellini’s 1968 “Golden Ferrari”. The car was named: “5” for the approximately 500 cc displacement of each of the V12’s cylinders; “40” for the 40th anniversary of the film (when the new owner Edward Walson first saw it — presumably at the Tribeca Film Festival); “Superfast,” an homage to the limited-production Ferrari GT’s from the 1960s; and finally “Aperta,” which is Italian for “open.”