The car is the four-seater, mid-engined sports car that Ferrari produced in the early 1980s, the Ferrari Mondial Quattrovalvole (indicating four valves per cylinder). The location is obvious: far away, on the grounds of a palace.
We often don’t think of palaces in the United States. We now have mansions. We also like to build castles for some reason. However, the palaces, with their extensive grounds and the vibrations of France above all as far as the guillotine is concerned, miss our collective imaginary. We build houses as big as palaces, on land as big as palaces, but somehow they always come out as estates.
The grandeur of the palace also invites modern criticism. When you’re really out there, touring Versailles or Sanssouci or any other place, almost overwhelmed by the opulence of a room covered in priceless artwork, mounted under a priceless mural that covers the entire length of the ceiling, gilded at its edges, a thought always seeps into your mind. These people didn’t even have plumbing, let alone WiFi.
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I guess the World Cup is similar. The soaring heights of the Ferrari logo, the manual shift lever, the stepped leather seats, the four-valve, four-chamber V8, it all reminds me, hey, that’s it it’s actually no faster than my friend’s 240SX. And the Ferrari is only marginally less likely to break.
Expectations associated with the “mid-engined Ferrari” overwhelmed the World Cup, and that’s a little annoying. It’s a car in itself, though it may not be the best Ferrari. A palace is an interesting type of human dwelling, although it is not the most comfortable place to leave a landfill.
I can say that’s why Ferrari threw a Mondial at a palace to photograph it in 1982. It still feels appropriate.