THE ROAD CAR
Ferrari F40
Enzo's 40th-anniversary supercar, the first street-legal production car to clear 200 mph.
The F40 started as a paper napkin. In June 1986, Enzo Ferrari — then 88 years old and already terminally ill — asked his chief engineer Nicola Materazzi for a car that would mark the company's 40th anniversary and remind the world what Ferrari meant. Materazzi had one condition: he got to build it the way he wanted. He got twelve months.
What Materazzi built was a production-homologated evolution of the 288 GTO Evoluzione Group B programme that had been cancelled when the FIA killed Group B. He kept the 2.9-litre twin-turbo V8, bored it out to 2,936 cc, pushed it to 478 bhp, and hung it behind the driver in a composite-and-steel monocoque with a Kevlar-reinforced body designed by Pininfarina. There was no ABS, no power steering, no stability control, and no carpet — Ferrari offered sliding Lexan side windows as a weight-saving option over wind-up glass.
On 21 July 1987, the F40 was unveiled at Ferrari's Civic Centre in Maranello. Enzo called it "the last Ferrari" — he died thirteen months later. The car became the first street-legal production car to exceed 200 mph (321 km/h), built 1,311 times between 1987 and 1992, and remains the Ferrari that most directly carries Enzo's own fingerprints. Every F40 that has come since — the F50, the Enzo, the LaFerrari, the F80 — is in some sense a response to it.
- Engine
- 2,936 cc twin-turbo V8
- Power
- 478 bhp @ 7,000 rpm
- Top speed
- 201 mph (324 km/h)
- Years built
- 1987–1992 · 1,311 cars







