1990 Ferrari F40 2.9 twin turbo

Summary:

Only prayer can make you feel better than this

Faults:

I have been following the advice of other owners and have replaced items or adjusted settings prior to breakage.

As is evident by the mileage, I'm driving it about once per month. In doing so, I manage to break down the battery quickly, resulting in a bi-annual replacement.

The P Zero Pirelli tires look great, work well, and wear about like you would expect. And don't even think about a tire store for replacements.

In fact, any preconceived notions about anything being "normal" about ownership or maintenance on this car or its newer brother should be discounted with haste. There is never an easy or cheap answer to my questions.

General Comments:

Lust. Pure lust.

I had a test drive in Florida in 1995 and thought about nothing else until I purchased the very car, still new, one year later. I have been living a different life ever since. My mind thinks of nothing but reasons to open the engine hatch or just sit in the driver's seat, hand on the shifter, in silence.

A clattery, vibratory experience is her idle, but her whistle on boost and the feel of the 2-3 upshift is incomparable. Simply, she is the mecca of autosport from her day, and the last child of Enzo.

I practically had to sell my soul to obtain the car and I would do it again. And again.

Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Yes

Review Date: 15th August, 2001

20th Aug 2001, 00:07

Thanks for the insightful comments regarding ownership of an F40! I can only imagine how costly it must be to operate that car. As a Ferrari Mondial T owner, I have suffered very high maintenance costs myself.

Happy driving!

7th Jul 2005, 02:50

I have had the privilege of being a passenger in a hard driven F40 for five laps of Donington Park circuit back in 1993. I can remember it like it was yesterday.

I note with a smile that you remark on the clattery idle. I remember when the driver fired it up in the pit lane it sounded like all the valve clearances were set to about half an inch! On the warm up lap it was the same, but louder with a whirring, clattering cacophony going on behind my right ear as the revs built. It sounded like it was about to seize up quite honestly.

Then we got onto the start/finish straight and he nailed it hard. I actually shouted an expletive inside my crash helmet. The turbos whistled up noisily, the clattering was slowly overpowered by a lovely induction howl which in turn became a full-on F1-esque scream. The wastegates chuffed and hissed on every gear change and on every lift off the throttle, and the cabin was permeated by that lovely aroma of hot oil and metal. Unlike today's supercars the F40 assaults all of the senses with superb smells, looks, feel, and noise.

And then there's the performance. I have since been in a Ferrari 575 Maranello, Ferrari 360 CS and a Lamborghini Murcielago and none have the same rib-crushing wallop that I remember from the F40. Even the supposed "raw" Stradale feels like a sofa after the spartan F40, although it does almost match it for sound quality.

Ferrari ownership is still a dream to me at the moment, but when/if I am in the position to do it, I will walk straight past all the shiny new offerings until I find myself a cherished F40. It's everything the Ferrari experience should be. Technically impressive as the new models I've been in were, they just don't have the same fire-breathing soul, or the road legal racer feel. Civility has no place in supercars - if you want refinement and useability, buy a GT!

You are a very lucky individual. Enjoy the car!

Best wishes

D

UK.

23rd Nov 2006, 07:55

Car show 1991, I seen a F40 Ferrari. Not in wealth to afford one, I bought books and vedios on the F40. I price used ones, parts for F40's, and concluded, that in this life I could only afford books, vedios and posters, which I have purchased.

The only way I could afford one was to build one.

Just to sit in one, are to drive one would only be reserved for a few wealthy. To build a car would be a undertaking of great poportion. What a feeling that would be. The cost of the wheels and tires alone, are not cheap. The brakes are art. The motor with the twin turbos, and inner coolers are art, as well as the the suspension. Ferrari was way above his time in car advancement. The things I did not like was the cockpit plain, making the road sound loud, and not as much (fun) to drive, on regular driving.

I can't imagine how hard it would to park one with such massive front tires, without power steering. The water to air inner coolers ack as heat chargers, mounted over the top of the motor, but what a beautiful piece of art. Then there were six LM F40's vents over the front wheels to vent heat off the massive brakes, 13 inch, and a front mouth in the front end to take in cold air through the radiator and let it out through the mouth open in the front end. A true Dream machine.