Celebrating your 40th birthday normally involves a big party and some dodgy dancing, but Ferrari did things differently when it came time to celebrate four-decades of the prancing horse.
Hot on the heels of the ballistic 288 GTO the Italian marque whipped the covers off the F40 in 1987 and changed supercars forever.
With a super-lightweight carbon-fibre body, insanely powerful 471hp (477hp in the USA) 2.9-litre twin-turbo V8, and top speed of 321km/h, it represented an all-out performance car for seriously wealthy Ferrari fans. It was also the last car to be personally approved by Enzo himself, representing the pinnacle of Ferrari engineering.
And boy was it good looking thanks to the aerodynamic bodywork and tall hoop spoiler. Kids everywhere tore their Lamborghini Countach posters down in favour of the new king of speed, such was the cultural impact it had.
In the end 1311 were built at a cost of US$400,000 each, all in left-hand drive. This was far and away more than the original estimate of 400 vehicles, and remains the highest production run for a top-echelon Ferrari supercar.
Values didn’t explode overnight, with the recession of the 1990s dropping values to approximately US$185,000 before steadily climbing over the last decade. Today you’ll need around $1,400,000 Aussie pesos to park an F40 in your garage.
As values for all of Ferrari’s top-tier supercars follow the 250 GTO and blow through the roof, you can be assured that mint-condition F40s will rise steadily in value.