1989 Ferrari F40 GT

The Ferrari F40

For Enzo Ferrari's 40th anniversary as a constructor under his own name, he gave his design team a very simple instruction: 'Build a car to be the best in the world.' Time has shown that they complied.

The F40 was a simple machine that, like the greatest Ferraris of the past, relied upon its engine for its performance. Suspension and layout were conventional, and there were no serious attempts to employ cutting-edge technology. The F40 was good, sound, basic design with a superb twin-turbocharged engine, aerodynamics heavily weighted toward down force, and stability with a generous use of lightweight, composite materials. Electronics were important, but they served the engine only. There was no ABS, no traction control, no electro-hydraulic paddle shifting, and no stability control.

The chassis was - like the 125 built 40 years before - based on two large-diameter steel tubes. They were joined and stiffened by light, compound structures, to be sure, but the basic form was as rudimentary as the ones welded together in the Gilberto shops a generation before.

Ferrari proposed only a limited run of 400 or so F40s, but its reception was overwhelming - even at over $250,000 apiece - and the run kept growing; 1,315 were built by the time production ended in 1991.

With a 201-mph top speed and 4.5-second 0-60 time, no one was disappointed with the F40.

The Michelotto F40s
Competition was never in Ferrari's plan for the F40, but Daniel Marin, managing director of French Ferrari importer Ch. Pozzi SA, took the initiative and induced Ferrari to authorize Michelotto, the Padu Ferrari service center, to construct a series of F40 LM's for racing under IMSA rules in the U.S. Fourteen were built, although only the first two, built for Pozzi, were actually raced to any significant extent in 1989 and 1990. They acquitted themselves well, but Ferrari never gave them the kind of factory backing that could have turned them into winners.

These were followed by five F40 GT's, also built by Michelotto to regulations for the Italian Supercar Championship and, as F50 GTE's, in the mid-'90s BPR GT series. The BPR Organization adopted air-restrictor regulations to handicap engine output and overall performance, but the lessons learned in the earlier competition F40s were applied to the limits of the rules in building the F40 GT's for these series. These few F40 GT's were much more highly developed race cars that were lighter, had better aerodynamics and sophisticated flat-floor ground effects, full ball-jointed suspensions, quick-fill fuel systems, wider wheels and tires, lower ride heights and other improvements that made them the most sophisticated of all the F40-based race cars, and potentially the fastest when relieved of their air-restrictor trumpets.

This Car
The F40 GT shown was acquired by Vittorio Colombo of Milan then sold in 1991 to Roberto Angiolini of Milan and raced under the banner of Jolly Club. With it, Marco Brand won the 1993 Italian GT1 Championship.

Jolly Club was one of the most important private entrants in Italy. From the '50s through the '90s, cars were entered by Jolly Club in races and rallies throughout Italy, Europe and in Formula One. It was operated under the umbrella of the important Jolly Hotels chain in Italy, a chain found by Count Gaetano Marzotto, patriarch of the Gaetano Marzotto & Figli fabric empire and father of the fast and sartorially elegant racing brothers Paolo and Gianni Marzotto, whose history with Ferrari starts with 166 Inter Spider Corsa 0121.

Angiolini's F40 was converted to F40 GT specifications by Michelotto in 1991-1992 and entered by Jolly Club for Marco Brand in the 1993 Italian GT Championship, Brand and his Jolly Club Ferrari GT overwhelmed the competition, winning eight of the nine rounds in which they competed, consistently finishing in front of the similarly configured but later F40 GT of Vittorio Colombo. Brand and the Jolly Club F40 GT s/n 80742 amassed 72 points (using the prevailing Grand Prix scoring system) to 30 points for Colombo and 94362.

Jolly Club again raced this F40 GT in the 1994 season with Federico D'Amore and Oscar Larrauri sharing the driving in the first three of the two-segment race formats used this season and Larrauri scoring three consecutive wins with it. Later in the season itw as taken over by Mauro Trione who drove it to a win, four seconds and a fifth place over the next four Italian Championship meetings. After the season's seventh-round entries in the Italian GT Championship (dominated to that point by Vittorio Colombo in 94362) shrank, it doesn't appear that 80742 was raced again by Jolly Club.

It was sold in 1994 to Yasntsune Chiba's Taisan International racing team in Japan where it was raced on at least five occasions in 1994 and 1995 before being retired until it was acquired by its present owner. It was featured in the Spring 2002 issue of the Japanese magazine Scuderia. Now in clean and track-ready as-raced condition, it has been taken to track days 'a couple of times' by its present owner, who is experienced in current GT competition and expressed his admiration of the F40 GT's performance. Still in its while/yellow/red Jolly Club livery from the 1993-1994 Italian GT1 Championship, the only deviation from as-raced condition has been to fit fresh Yokahama slicks.

Carefully maintained and recently used sparingly - and then only for on-track demonstration, never in competition - it is a real championship-wining Ferrari GT. It is one of the ultimate Ferraris: blindingly fast and with tire-melting performance, instant response from its race-bred chassis and air-gulping turbocharged V-8, and purposeful Pininfarina design which makes an instant and indelible impression.

There are few experiences in life that can measure up to driving a Ferrari F40 GT, which is why most of them are carefully sequestered in long-term ownership in the most discriminating collections.

Source - Gooding & Company