Ferrari F40

Vehicle Overview

The Ferrari F40 debuted with a planned production total of 400 units and a factory suggested retail price of approximately US$400,000 in 1987 ($900,000 today). One of those that belonged to the Formula One driver Nigel Mansell was sold for the then record of £1 million in 1990, a record that stood into the 2010s. A total of 1,315 cars were manufactured with 213 units destined for the United States. As early as 1984, Materazzi had proposed to Enzo Ferrari the idea of using the Group B 4-litre category (2.857-litre if turbocharged) to prove the performance of new road cars which with increased power could no longer safely display their performance on the road in the hands of regular buyers. Since Enzo Ferrari no longer had control over the production part of the business, Materazzi had to obtain permission from the General Manager Eugenio Alzati. Permission was granted but only at the condition that work would take place outside of the Monday to Friday work week. A very small team thus developed the GTO Evoluzione on Saturdays to compete in the same class entered by the Porsche 959 in FIA Group B. However, when the FIA brought an end to the Group B category for the 1986 season, Enzo Ferrari was left with five 288 GTO Evoluzione development cars, and no series to enter them into competition. These were left for enthusiasts who might consider purchasing one until a validation driver convinced Enzo Ferrari that Materazzi could keep the base car concept alive and make it roadworthy. Enzo’s desire to leave a legacy in his final sports car allowed the Evoluzione program to be further developed to produce a car exclusively for road use. In particular Ferrari had been impressed with the development of recent cars which claimed back much of the performance deficit inflicted by ever more restrictive emissions regulations. In response to the quite simple, but very expensive car with relatively little out of the ordinary being called a “cynical money-making exercise” aimed at speculators, a figure from the Ferrari marketing department was quoted as saying “We wanted it to be very fast, sporting in the extreme and Spartan,” “Customers had been saying our cars were becoming too plush and comfortable.” “The Ferrari F40 is for the most enthusiastic of our owners who want nothing but sheer performance. It isn’t a laboratory for the future, as the 959 is. It is not Star Wars. And it wasn’t created because Porsche built the 959. It would have happened anyway.” In fact the reasons for the car’s rawness and simplicity are very much linked to Materazzi’s racing background. The body of the Ferrari F40 was designed by Leonardo Fioravanti and Pietro Camardella of studio Pininfarina, under the guidance of Materazzi while the latter worked on evolutions of the engine, gearbox and other mechanical parts of the car to make them roadworthy. Many of these were well validated in the 288 GTO Evoluzione, from which the Ferrari F40 takes many styling cues. From the beginning of the project on 10 June 1986 Enzo Ferrari asked for the car to be completed in a very short space of time (11 months) and be presented in the summer of 1987. For this reason he gave Materazzi permission to choose all the engineers in the team. Some of the development of the car, such as the bodywork was carried out at external companies like Michelotto Automobili (in Padua) who had experience in rally and race preparation.