Ferrari F40, Ferrari's First Near Racer Is Still Revered By The Experts

Despite starting life in the 1980s, the Ferrari F40 is still one of the quickest cars in the world. It was the first production car to top 200 mph, and accelerated to 60 mph in 3.5-3.8 seconds, a time which is extremely difficult to beat.

The F40 is a raw supercar; no frills, no concessions to creature comforts, but built to go fast. More or less a sports racing car for the road, for the true enthusiast.

Anything that got in the way the performance was left off. Nor was it easy to drive. As one owner told us: "You have to concentrate every minute when you're driving the F40. Everything happens so fast."

2.9 liter V-8 engine turbocharged

The car was based on Ferrari's 2.9 liter V-8, but highly turbocharged by a pair of IHT turbochargers to give 478 bhp, enough to give the light car its superb performance. In those days that was as much power as the average Grand Prix car churned out.

The compact engine was mounted in a tubular chassis, which was clothed in a carbon fiber and Kevlar composite body. There were deformable front and rear sections.

The body style was one of the car's major triumphs, and probably one of the best designs to emerge from Pininfarina's studio. Like all good designs, it told you what the F40 was a mighty fast car in all respects.

Elegant Pininfarina design

It has a wide, gently rising nose, with three simple grilles below the low waistline. The fenders are just proud of the hood, and house the low driving lamps and the covers for the pop-up headlamps. There are a couple of elegant NACA ducts in the hood.

The sides show that characteristic gentle sweep up over the front wheels, down a bit, then up over the rear wheels to the quite high tail, which is topped by a very high spoiler. There are large air outlets just behind the front wheels copied on many a supercar, but rare in those days.

The fastback roof is slatted to give some extra air to the engine, which gets most of its air from large ducts in the doors. A styling masterpiece.

Stripped for performance no frills

Inside, the car was quite bare: no carpets, simple wind-up windows, and wide composite sills you need to get over to get into the driver's seat which grips you tight. The pedals are drilled, of course, and the driver sits behind a simple instrument panel. Poking out of the low central tunnel is Ferrari's typically long and slender gear lever; in those days five speeds were considered quite enough.

Of course, there was neither ABS nor traction control, nor even power assisted steering and this was a car with massive wide tires. The front ones were 235/45, and the rear ones 335/35 not far different from current supercars.

Steering was quite hard work, but the driver was rewarded with feedback through the steering of everything that was happening at the tires something that is lacking on too many cars these days, thanks partly to the use of power assistance, and partly owing to poor steering geometry. The clutch was pretty heavy as well.

Driving the F40 was life in the raw; an adventure, as you concentrated hard on what you were doing, and tried not to be distracted by the amazingly loud noise of the engine, transmission and tires, and the hard ride. Not for the faint hearted.

Without doubt, the F40 is one of the finest cars of its type to be built ever beautiful and with amazing performance.