Appearances can be deceptive. Despite the seven-figure price, this is not a Ferrari 250 SWB in Rob Walker colours you’re looking at. Nor is it even a Ferrari of that period and of a kind such as a 250 GTE that often get cut up to make recreated versions of Enzo’s greatest hits. It’s not even a conventional restomod like a Singer 911 or Eagle E-type where at least the departure point from the original is a 911 or E-type. This is something else.

It’s the work of RML – Ray Mallock Ltd – which is far better known for its forays into most forms of motor-racing but has for years been quietly working away with many different OEMs to help bring their products to market. The Short Wheelbase (as this car is called), however, is entirely for them. Designed, engineered, built and developed in-house by RML.

The idea is actually quite simple: take a far more modern Ferrari than an original SWB but one which retains that car’s essential formula – the naturally aspirated V12 motor, the manual gearbox, the drive to the rear wheels alone and so on – and reclothe it to look like the SWB, so you get the appearance of one, with the performance of the other. At least in theory. And it does only look like an old SWB – it’s a bigger car by far and sits on a longer wheelbase so it would not share a single panel in common even if they were made from aluminium. But they’re not: the body of the Short Wheelbase is entirely carbon fibre.

The car doing the donating is actually a 1990s 550 Maranello which bequeaths its chassis, suspension, engine and gearbox, all major mechanical items being rebuilt and the engine blueprinted to be as good as, and probably better than, new.

The interior mimics that of the original SWB in similar vein. None of it is the same, but the approach – big clocks in front of you, smaller ones laid out in a line across the centre of the cabin with switches below – is. But unlike any SWB that I know, this one has a hidden navigation unit that deploys on demand, effective air conditioning, decent sound system and Apple CarPlay.

“Briefly I felt like Stirling winning the 1961 TT at Goodwood”

It’s got something else you won’t find in the original too. Space. I’ve been fortunate enough to drive the Rob Walker SWB in which Stirling Moss won the 1961 Tourist Trophy and I can confirm that if you’re 6ft 3in, it’s really quite cosy in there. Not here: RML founder Ray Mallock and his son Michael, who now runs the business, are both similarly tall and have ensured the Short Wheelbase has room inside for all conventionally proportioned people.

The 5.5-litre V12 fires with a whirr that’s not so very different to that of the 3-litre Colombo V12 in an SWB, though the sound that it makes thereafter, smoother, more cultured and less angry on fuel injection rather than triple Webers, undoubtedly is. It produces 479bhp, a slightly lower specific output than the SWB achieved in period, but with probably a rather better manner and, weighing around 1700kg, their power-to-weight ratios are probably quite similar.

But RML has made no attempt to turn this car into a track-day machine or even a tyre-melting road warrior. It is quite softly sprung and sits on, by modern standards, reasonably modestly proportioned and quite hard tyres. It’s a road car in which how fast you’re going matters not in the least relative to how much fun you’re having while going fast.