the F40 is undervalued

F40 is a great asset, its the only thing i own id be happy to lose 50% on!

 

Just 4 years ago a nice low miles USA F40 was @ $1.5m

 

The Mecum Kissimmee 2023 action...

 

Just think where they will be in 4 years time..... the million dollar question...

 

i was there and i saw this beast

 

by no means an expert on this model at all, but the paint looked thick on this car....no discernible weave on any body panel....the letter I in the Ferrari emblem on the rear was bent and broken. I would have replaced it asap if i was the seller. i know cheap part, but it makes bidders wonder what else did he not fix. could have happened in transit yes, but WHAT A CAR....

 

This also shldnt be painted red
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Some were painted red on Ferrari engine.
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From past posts i dont believe thats true.

 

Correct you are, the red lettering is a post-production application, it's not original, that said it's an easy correction.

 

Absolutely agree with this statement and observations. Thanks Ross!

Marcel Massini

 

It has got to be said Tom does just get the best cars.... I've done a few deals now with Tom over the last few years and he is a class act.
https://www.tomhartleyjnr.com/car/stock/1990/ferrari/f40/101414/

 

The paint may well have gotten thicker as production went along, but bear in mind that F40s were painted with single-stage paint and thicker does not necessarily mean a better paint job! In fact, many of the 1992 cars I have inspected over the years have paint runs, overspray and contaminants. As posted elsewhere, by 1992 a number of new owners refused delivery of cars because the paint was deemed substandard and the dealers, Hollywood Sports Cars and Ferrari of Houston to name just two, agreed to refinish the cars concerned.

FWIW the paint got thicker because some of the people who received earlier F40s thought the paint was too thin as it showed the composite materials body panel 'weave' through it which many had never seen before on a road-going sports-car in the late 80s, they thought that wasn't right and they disliked the finish. The factory responded with thicker paint, but still single stage paint with lots of paint flaws evident, as is characteristic.

Fast forward several decades and times have changed (probably inspired by a newly-discovered fondness for the beauty of the F50's blatantly thin paint which reveals the composite materials weave on all panels), an early production F40 with thin single-stage paint which reveals the composite material weave is now worshiped as the Holy Grail, in fact I can get considerably more in the market than an F40 with thick paint and no weave visible. Everyone seems to want to see the weave and sings it's praises as a sign of well-preserved original paint as they rediscover the original lightweight thin-paint original ethos of the car. Here's an article about this aspect of F40's paint https://stevs.ca/blogs/articles-insights/ferrari-f40-thin-paint underscoring that the word better is very subjective.

 

It was more the case that the raw panels were better prepared later in the run, prior to final paint application, rather than thicker paint. It was a marketing spin by Ferrari at the time to justify the poor finish and visible weave by claiming it was intended. It seems that the panel suppliers started using a gel coat before laying the material into the moulds, this prevents resin sinkage later on as the cars are exposed to sunlight and natural heat which causes the weave to then be visible. If you look at period pics the raw panels also used different coloured gel coats, I suspect they were subbed out and each company used a different product.

Back then the resins used were the same as for fibreglass (which is actually what you see on the F40 as this was the initial cloth in the lay up) these days epoxy is used instead which does not shrink back to give that weave effect unless it is required as part of a restoration.

 

and that's why 1991 is the best f40 year

 

Indeed in preparation they soothed out panels of later production cars but the paint is thicker on the later cars, we've probably inspected over 100 F40s in the past 25 years and you can see the production progression away from the original raw composite panels covered with thin paint which was the original ideal.

I beg to disagree, for the USA F40s, the 1990s were very much the best assembled best painted cars, quality diminished with time towards the end of USA production in 1992, we sold one of the 1st handful of USA F40s an Apple executive and it is perhaps the best original USA F40 I have ever seen. I personally owned 2 1990s which I scrutinized and they were better in quality than the 1991 which I later owned.

The reason the early cars were so carefully painted and assembled was the fact that the new USA 1990 F40 represented Ferrari SpA's 1st USA-legal Supercar (the 288 GTO wasn't USA-legal) and great care was taken with the 1st year's production to ensure they didn't have any quality control issues. Ferrari North America even insisted on new USA F40s across the country being personally delivered by John Amette as part of this process.

 

https://www.planetf1.com/news/toto-wolff-rare-ferrari-f40-up-for-sale/

 

Toto Wolff selling off his Ferrari collection
“I don’t think it looks particularly good if I was cruising around with a Ferrari, although it is a fantastic brand."
Wolff’s 2018 LaFerrari Aperta and 2003 Ferrari Enzo both went up for sale, .....

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missing context:

Mercedes F1 boss Toto Wolff

that is why it "would not look good to be cruising around in a Ferrari"...

 

People love to be economical with context.

 

please. most car enthusiasts know who Toto Wolff is.

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I think he was just being humorous as was I.