Side view of a Blue Ferrari F40 on display at the 2016 London Classic Car Show
The Ferrari F40 is a mid-engine, rear-wheel drive, two-door coupé sports car built from 1987 to 1992 (up to 1994 for the LM and 1996 for the GTE). The successor to the Ferrari 288 GTO, it was designed to celebrate Ferrari's 40th anniversary and was the last Ferrari automobile personally approved by Enzo Ferrari. At the time it was the fastest, most powerful, and most expensive car that Ferrari sold to the public. The car debuted with a factory suggested retail price of approximately US$400,000 in 1987 ($830,000 today), although some buyers were reported to have paid as much as US$ million. 1,311 F40s were manufactured in total. As early as 1984, the Maranello factory had begun development of an evolution model of the 288 GTO intended to compete against 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 in which to campaign them. Enzo's desire to leave a legacy in his final supercar allowed the Evoluzione program to be further developed to produce a car exclusively for road use. 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 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. The factory never intended to race the F40, but the car saw competition as early as 1989 when it debuted in the Laguna Seca Raceway round of the IMSA, appearing in the GTO category, with a LM evolution model driven by Jean Alesi, finishing third to the two faster spaceframed four wheel drive Audi 90 and beating a host of other factory backed spaceframe specials that dominated the races.
Size: 5616px × 3744px
Location: ExCel, London, United Kingdom
Photo credit: © John Gaffen / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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