Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano Panamerican

Statistically speaking, the world's most dangerous road is a 40-mile-long gravel ledge hacked into a Bolivian mountainside in the 1930s by Paraguayan POWs. It descends 10,000 feet from La Paz down to Coroico in the Amazon basin. Each year, roughly 150 people and a couple dozen vehicles topple off this 10-foot-wide path, plunging some 1600 feet to their doom. Almost immediately upon our arrival in La Paz, photographer Brian Vance and I head out to preview the Camino de la Muerte in a Toyota Town Ace van. We don't want any surprises when we set off for Lima, Peru, in a few days on our 1000-mile leg of Ferrari's Panamerican 20,000--an epic P.R. stunt in which two 599 GTB Fioranos will spend three months driving from Brazil to New York City, via Canada.

Back down in old-town La Paz, we take the further precaution of appealing to the pagan spirits that Bolivia's indigenous majority still honors (despite attending Catholic mass faithfully). We head for the witches' market to stock up on good-luck charms and chicha, or corn beer, but demur on the desiccated llama fetus offered in the bargain. Then on the appointed departure day, we stage an elaborate cho'lla--a blessing asked of Incan earth-mother goddess Pachamama by pouring a bit of fizzy chicha on each of our Ferrari's tires.

The results are immediate. As we crest the rim of the amphitheater-like canyon-walled city of La Paz, Pachamama steers our entire convoy out of harm's way and in the opposite direction of the Death Road, out onto Bolivia's altiplano (high plain) and west toward the mythical origin of South America's great Inca empire, Lake Titicaca. We feel deprived, if slightly relieved.

Ferrari's own hedge against things gone wrong is an entourage of 11 technicians, drivers, photographers, and a doctor, following along in two Iveco trucks (filled with 1750 pounds of spare parts), a bus, two Fiat Doblo microvans, and two Fiat Idea cute 'utes. By the time we arrive in La Paz, the team has been galvanized by 15 days and 3000 miles of driving on incredibly challenging roads. The cars are still running perfectly.

Modifications to the two early-build 599s include raising the suspension an inch, armoring the underbody with 4mm-thick aluminum, installing high-altitude engine computers, and fitting Pirelli SottoZero tires custom designed for the 599 (they combine a snow-tire tread pattern with a rally-racing rubber compound). Between the starting line and La Paz, the Ferraris have suffered only one flat tire, a burned-out lamp, and a malfunction of the secondary gauge display in the blue car.