From the February 1991 Issue of Car and Driver.

Here are twelve things you should know about the Ferrari F40:

· Its sticker price is $399,150.

· But dealers are getting about $700,000 for one, a bargain from last summer's peak price of $900,000 and change.

· The price does not include a spare tire or a jack. Neither is available.

· The price does include a free trip for two to the Ferrari factory in Italy for the purpose of showing the buyer how to drive it.

· It goes 122 mph in the quarter-mile.

· Flat out, it goes 197. You have our word.

· Insurance costs about $15,000. Every six months.

· The F40 meets all U.S. emissions and safety regulations. In short, it's legal.

· As soon as he got his, Formula 1 driver Nigel Mansell sold it.

· It pulls 1.01 g on the skidpad.

· Financed over five years, the monthly payment on an F40 runs about $12,000 a month.

· One buyer took no chances. Without even driving it, he sealed up his new F40 in the safest place available: his living room.

View Photos MARK PRESTON

Here at Car and Driver, Rule 1 for test drivers is this: Be Cool. Rules 2 through 10 are equally simple: Remain Cool.

Sad to report, a wrecking ball called the Ferrari F40 has just put big crow's feet on our stony editorial face. Tough as it is to admit, the F40 has made our knees tremble involuntarily, our hearts do little stutter steps, and it made our palms disgustingly wet. Doctor, doctor! Maybe the editorial feet are touching ground, maybe not—we'll get back to you on that a little later.

After two days on the road and an afternoon at the test track, we can report that nothing we've ever driven can match the mix of sheer terror and raw excitement of earth-scorching around in someone else's three-quarter-million-dollar toy. (Our privately owned test car came to us thanks to the kind assistance of Ferrari dealer Rick Mancuso, who owns Lake Forest Sports Cars, in Lake Forest, Illinois. Understandably, the F40's owner wants to remain anonymous—lest he one day arrive home to discover his family removed to a village in the Andes and a ransom note for, oh, about the cash value of an F40.)



Piloting an F40 is like, well, imagine being blindfolded in a pitch-black closet with Michelle Pfeiffer, Cher, and Ellen Barkin and having to guess their identities without talking—but, sorry, you're married. Imagine standing alone in center field at Dodger Stadium while the crowd cheers. But also imagine riding around with a million bucks in your trunk and a three-foot neon sign on the roof reading: "Million Dollars in Trunk." That's what driving an F40 is like.

View Photos MARK PRESTON

A deep breath here and we'll attempt to explain further. You see, a Ferrari F40 isn't like other current exotic cars. In the last twenty years, the cars with the mile-high price tags and headache-inducing acceleration have gone through a remarkable metamorphosis: they've become thoroughly domesticated. They have power windows and respectable air conditioners and enough room for six-footers now. You can see out of them well enough to change lanes without saying Hail Mary first. You can hop into almost any of them and drive cross-country reasonably assured of emerging of sound mind and body.

Not so the F40. It harks back to a time—the late 1950s and before—when makes like Ferrari, Maserati, Jaguar, and Porsche built sports and GT cars for the road that could be raced with a minimum of modifications. Some started life as high-strung racers and were barely tamed for the street. We're talking about cars like the original Testarossa, the Jag C- and D-types, the Porsche 550 Spyder. The Ford GT40 Mark III is the lone American car that follows this blueprint. None of them were comfortable, tractable, or reliable. What they offered was unvarnished excitement—the raw, elemental race-car experience for the street.

The F40 is like that. It looks like a race car that made a wrong turn at the end of pit lane. Its nose droops to shovel air out of the way. Its Kevlar body is pockmarked with enough air scoops to inhale a flock of sheep. A wing fit for a Formula 1 car sprouts from the rear deck—no wimpy spoilers here. The F40's midship-mounted, twin-turbocharged 2.9-liter V-8 is on display under a lightweight plexiglass rear window that's been slotted to allow hot engine-compartment air out. Know of any other street car with a rear window like that? The F40 has height-adjustable suspension, too. There are two positions, one about two inches lower than the other. You have to unbolt the entire suspension to move it but, hey, you have a pit crew, right?

Specifications VEHICLE TYPE: mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive, 2-passenger, 2-door coupe

PRICE AS TESTED: $399,150

ENGINE TYPE: DOHC 32-valve twin-turbocharged and intercooled V-8, aluminum block and heads, port fuel injection

Displacement: 179 cu in, 2936 cc

Power: 478 hp @ 7000 rpm

Torque: 424 lb-ft @ 4500 rpm

TRANSMISSION: 5-speed manual

DIMENSIONS:

Wheelbase: 96.5 in

Length: 171.6 in

Width: 77.6 in Height: 44.3 in

Curb weight: 3018 lb

C/D TEST RESULTS:

Zero to 60 mph: 4.2 sec

Zero to 100 mph: 8.3 sec

Zero to 130 mph: 13.5 sec

Top gear, 30-50 mph: 12.1 sec

Top gear, 50-70 mph: 12.2 sec

Standing ¼-mile: 12.1 sec @ 122 mph

Top speed: 197 mph

Braking, 70-0 mph: 218 ft

Roadholding, 300-ft-dia skidpad: 1.01 g

FUEL ECONOMY:

EPA city/highway: 12/17 mpg

C/D observed: 9 mpg

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