Watch a Ferrari Enzo and a Maserati MC12 go head to head

Separated at birth, the Ferrari Enzo and Maserati MC12 were the pinnacle of Italian early Noughties’ performance. They shared essentially the same underpinnings, although with rather different purpose.

The Enzo was Ferrari’s tribute to its founder, a successor to the F40 and F50 that drew on the firm’s F1 success, but was firmly focused on the road. Maserati had its heart set on racing instead, using the Enzo’s V-12 engine and carbon chassis as the basis for a contender in the FIA GT Championship. Clothed in longer, sleeker bodywork, and with a slightly de-tuned version of the Enzo’s powerplant, just 50 road-going versions were built, compared to 400 Enzos.

Despite weighing more than the Enzo, and with a power disadvantage the Maserati’s aerodynamics and chassis tweaks made it a faster track tool, but what would happen if the two met on a drag strip? That question has finally been answered by California’s Petersen Museum who lined the two multi-million-dollar supercars against each other in a series of quarter-mile races and filmed the fun for its YouTube channel. We won’t spoil it by revealing the result, just watch the video for five minutes of V-12 at full volume.

The Petersen also laid on a more modern Ferrari F12 to see how much times have changed, but the most surprising thing about this video is perhaps not the results of the race but that these amazing museum pieces are run like this at all.