Ferrari F40: 15-year ownership experience of an icon!

While the 288 GTO is a very special car, the F40 was the better driver’s car and more of an experience.

BHPian SSO recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

We have owned our Ferrari F40 for just over 15 years now. This is twice as long as I have ever owned any other car. In those 15 years, I’ve driven it 30,000 miles across 11 different countries. The F40 has had one major engine rebuild, two new clutches, and one new set of fuel cells. Our various adventures over the years are well documented both on Karenable.com and in a few issues of EVO Magazine. I’ve taken the F40 on the track in several different countries and have run it flat out down the autobahn. The longest single-day drive I have done in it was Nice to Madrid in a bit under 9 hours. The F40 has been driven across the Swiss Alps and up a goat path in Wales. Needless to say, our F40 has led a full life in the last 15 years and is about as far from being a garage queen as you can get.

How we ended up with the F40 is a bit of a convoluted story. It started with a test drive of a Dino 246 GT in the countryside outside of Brussels. While the test drive was far from the success the conversation back in the garage turned out to be most fortuitous. In the barn where the Dino was kept, there were also two F40s. After we established that the Dino 246 GT wasn’t going to work due to both my longish legs and a missing 2nd gear, the conversation shifted quickly to the two imposing F40s. It was the 1st time I had ever seen a pair up close, and the highly knowledgeable broker took me through both cars and pointed out the differences as one was a very early production sliding Plexi window F40, and the other a late cat & adjustable suspension F40. Neither of the F40s was for sale at the time and the brokers parting words were if you are interested in an F40, I would act quickly as prices are about to start rising again. Wise words.

Roll forward a few months and the search for an F40 was on. At that point, I hadn’t settled completely on the F40, a 288 GTO was also under consideration. Back then, the 288 GTO was the less valuable of the two cars. As values hadn’t gone through the roof yet, dealers would still let you take them out on test drives. It was after test driving a couple of 288 GTOs and F40s that the decision was made to pursue an F40. While the 288 GTO is a very special car, the F40 was the better driver’s car and more of an experience. As special as the 288 GTO is, it does feel a bit like a 328 GTB on steroids. The F40 on the other hand will never be mistaken for anything else.

After looking at a number of different F40s, the one I finally settled on was a very late production, a two-owner car that had been originally delivered in Rome. The second owner had the car in Germany and I bought it from Eberlein Ferrari in Kassel. The negotiations on the car took several months and were an exercise in patience. We finally agreed on the deal which included part exchanging my Ferrari 550 Maranello. The 550 was in Portugal at the time and the plan was to drive it from Lisbon to Kassel, swap it for the F40, and then drive the F40 to Madrid where I had an apartment at the time. The story of that trip is: 1st Four Days in the F40.

After that very memorable 1st trip, we have had a wonderful succession of different experiences with the F40 over the years. A few of the more memorable ones are captured in a few articles posted on karenable including - Return to Maranello with 40 other F40s, epic drive across France, and across the Alps to Tuscany. Some of the highlights from those trips include being on the track at Mugello with several dozen other F40s, having the Italian police clear traffic for us on the Autostrade, crossing the Alps with temperatures still below freezing in late June, and hustling the F40 down stunning D roads in southern France. There have been numerous other road trips in Spain, Germany, Portugal, France and the UK. The F40 has navigated narrow Welsh B roads, been driven across the moors of Devon, and been driven up a glorified goat path in the Brecon Beacons. It’s also been run across a number of Alpine passes which still rates as some of the most challenging and exhilarating driving I have done in the car. The F40 also featured in one of EVO Magazines more memorable articles when Henry Catchpole and Dean Smith drove it back to the UK from Switzerland for me.

Here's what BHPian Asish_VK had to say on the matter:

Holly Molly!

Never in my wildest dream, I thought I will read an F40 ownership review/update in Team-BHP.

Thanks for sharing the experience with us mere mortals.

Here's what BHPian CLIX had to say on the matter:

Thanks for sharing that very interesting article.

The F40 has lots of fun memories for me. No, not because I ever owned one, but because I fell for that design the moment I received the Indian Auto Journal with an F40 centre-spread, sometime in 1987-88 I think. I requested my mother, who used to paint, to paint me one. Not the road-going version. The one that would go "Where no man has gone before". [ Too much Star Trek on a young impressionable mind I guess! ]

Here's the pic attached. And is on display till this day, on my study wall.

Pardon the distraction from your post. Thought this might be of interest.

Here's what BHPian androdev had to say on the matter:

Lovely to see this post! Your blog is awesome - rarely get to read about these cars from the owners who actually use them. I thought it's Kar-enable till I read the explanation of the name. There is a guy-next-door feel to the blog which is surreal when you consider the cars being discussed!

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