Holy Crap There's An Ultra-Rare Maserati MC12 Race Car On Public Roads

The Maserati MC12 Corsa isn't just rare, it might as well not exist. It's so rare that if I saw one anywhere, even at a show, I'd expect an entire herd of unicorns to go marching right past. Now someone's gone and made one road-legal, and they're driving it around California.

In truth, Maserati made 12 examples of the MC12 Corsa, itself a racing version of the impossible MC12. And the MC12 was an even rarer Maserati-fied version of the Ferrari Enzo, itself a Hope Diamond of a car.

To put it all in perspective, there are more than eight times as many McLaren F1s, traditionally considered the holy grail of car-spotting. So to have video of one not only driving, but on public roads, is just nuts.

That's what we in the business call "goddamn special."

What you'd need to do to certify this not just for public use, but for American public use, must've been downright Herculean, and even then I can't imagine how it got past the notoriously-difficult New York State DMV. You'd need to raise the suspension, fix the fuel system so that you could actually put a regular fuel pump in it, surely change the exhaust, and probably fiddle with the lights, not to mention a whole bunch of other small details most don't even think about.

And yet I still can't believe what I'm watching. The 755-horsepower V12 engine sounds like it's not silenced at all, the steering wheel has a giant screen in the middle for all the racing information, and you can hear every little pebble in the world, for lack of sound deadening. And as for the "raised suspension," I imagine they raised it from 1 millimeter off the ground, to maybe 1.1 millimeters off the ground.

It is, in short, incredible, and easily the most brutal car you'll ever see just cruising down the street.

H/t to Garrett!