Oh yes, the 333 SP was a masterpiece of motorsport engineering in its day, and continues to inspire two and a half decades after its introduction. This car marked a return to top flight sports car racing for the Scuderia in over two decades, and hot damn was it successful. From 1994 to 2003 the 27 triple three chassis officially entered 144 races and won 56 of them. That’s a pretty great win ratio, no matter how you cut it.

Now, nearly twenty years on, a pair of 333 SP have returned to the Imola circuit in Italy to bellow a haunting shout at you. Perhaps their shouts never left the race tracks of the world, simply howling as specters all these years. Perhaps these raucous ghost ships only appear corporeal during days when the track is open. There is no bag of bones behind the wheel, simply the facsimile of a helmet to make you think it’s a real boy.

The 333 SP so longs for competition of its heyday that the soul of each one stays tied to a sinewy ribbon of tarmac somewhere in Italy. It cannot rest, cannot find respite, it is but a hollow core mixing air with shadow fuel and igniting it with a spirit spark. Though it may not be there in plastic and carbon and steel tubing, the apparition of a 333 SP can still howl like it owes beelzebub a favor.

These glorious red four-wheeled Flying Dutchmen are doomed to roar around racing tracks all over the world, and I hope that when I succumb to death myself I am become Captain Hendrick Van der Decken. It shall be my burden to bear, to slam through the gears in the 333 SP for eternity. Tamburello will be my Cape of Good Hope. I shall spend my afterlife seeking the undefinable perfect lap. Avast!