Mere months before his passing, a frail Enzo Ferrari announced from a podium at Ferrari headquarters in Maranello, Italy, a car that would change the world. That car, the F40, signaled the end of an era, both for the Ferrari brand and for performance cars in general. It was a demanding, Spartan supercar— “not particularly comfortable” even by the company’s own description. The F40 was designed expressly to be the fastest, sharpest, most aggressive Ferrari road car, ever. And it was about as close as you could get to a race car that had snuck out of the paddock and somehow gotten approved for road use.
In a way, the car had done just that. The F40’s roots are found in the 288 GTO Evoluzione, the rocket that Ferrari had been developing to do battle in the road-racing portion of the fabled Group B category of FIA-sanctioned racing. Rallying accidents killed the entire category before the Evoluzione could strut its stuff, leaving Ferrari with the decision about what to do with all the time, money, and remarkable engineering that had gone into the project. The answer came in the form of a German rival, caught in the same predicament.
Porsche had also been developing a Group B monster and was forced to turn that project into a road car. Known first as Gruppe B concept, that car eventually became the astonishingly fast and technologically advanced 959.
Ferrari noticed the headlines and accolades the 959 drew, and began to think his stillborn Group B car could do the same. “This is a great car, we have to make it,” said Ferrari test driver Marco Toni of the Evoluzione. That was all that Enzo needed to hear. He tapped Nicola Materazzi, father of the 288 GTO and its Evoluzione counterpart, to build the road car. It would be the last road car that Enzo Ferrari personally approved.
The F40 debuted in 1987 and stunned evaluators with its blistering performance. A Road & Track test in October 1991 showed that the 478-hp F40 could hit 60 mph from a standstill in just 3.8 seconds and dispatch the quarter mile in 11.8 seconds on its way to a top speed of 196 mph.
The Ferrari packed advanced engineering, including a twin-turbo V-8 and a lightweight Kevlar and carbon composite body. Yet it wasn’t a spaceship like the 959. If the Porsche was a glimpse into the technology-laden future, the F40 was heralded as the most distilled, most satisfying version of the old ways of doing things. It had none of the electronic nannies now standard in every modern performance car. It didn’t use trick engine mapping and traction control to augment lap times. No power steering, power brakes or ABS to reassure the driver. The F40 demanded the utmost attention and focus. Give it that, though, and it would give back the best driving experience of any car on the road at the time and most of them since.
For Enzo, who died in 1988, it was a fitting final act, and it pointed to a future in which his company would, even after his passing, be at the forefront of ultra-high-performance road cars.
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