Looking Back At The Last Leap Forward
Want to put an F50 in context? Have an F40 around for contrast. Paul Frame allowed Motor Trend that privilege by bringing his red F40 out to romp with his yellow F50.
Despite their radically different appearances, the F40 and F50 are close in size. At 174.4 inches long, the F40 is two inches shorter than the F50, while its 96.5-inch wheelbase is 5.1 inches less generous than its successor’s. Even with its towering rear wing, the F40 is a mere 0.4 inches taller than the F50. The two cars even wear the same section-width tires: 245-millimeter fronts and 335-millimeter rears, the F40 on 17-inch-diameter wheels, the F50 on 18s. The only surprising dimension is weight: The F40’s 2426-pound steel frame with composite body is 286 pounds lighter than the F50’s, which is nearly all carbon fiber.
Open up the rear half of the F40 and the real difference between the two cars comes into vivid relief. The F40’s 2.9-liter/478-horsepower DOHC 32-valve twin-turbocharged V-8 is a complex web of pipes and intercoolers, compared with the simplicity of the F50’s naturally aspirated V-12. And all that engine plumbing snakes through and about an intricate steel spaceframe to which the drivetrain and suspension are attached. Where the F50’s construction techniques represent lessons learned from Formula One competition of the ’90s, the F40 is built more like the classic ’70 512 S Le Mans racer.
Derived from the cabin of the mid-’70s 308 GTB, the F40’s cockpit is an intimate affair. The boxy dash intrudes toward the driver and passenger and is finished in a military-tough gray cloth. Anyone over six feet tall must sit with their legs angled uncomfortably to fit inside. This isn’t a luxury car by any stretch of the imagination, but what its stark interior lacks in elegance it makes up for in seriousness of purpose. The F40 is a car for going very fast, and the driver’s attention should be focused on that somber task, not on comfort and decoration.
Once the starter button is hit, the F40 settles into a lumpy idle. Sitting in its traditional Ferrari metal gate, the five-speed shifter takes a determined heave to throw it into first; the gear engages with an audible, satisfying gnashing of teeth. The car’s turbo-muffled engine is disarmingly quiet and until nearly 5000 rpm seems quite gentle under light throttle. At that point, however, the turbos slam into action, and the beast within the car rips time and space into bite-size chunks. The factory’s 201-mph top-speed claim seems giddily reasonable. But, while the F50’s power delivery is seamless, the F40’s has a seam in it whose size can only be appreciated by seismic telemetry.
Coming off the TWS banking in the F40, as opposed to the imperturbable F50, the older Ferrari transitions onto the flat apron with a touch of bump steer. Every corner is a series of quick initial steering inputs followed by rapid small adjustments and minor corrections.
The F50’s high-tech synergy just isn’t part of the F40’s repertoire of intimidating talents. The F40 is a brawling, ferocious automotive extremist: brute force in service of the idea of brute force. Where the F50 derives ability from finite element analysis and its applied technology, the F40 gets there with sheer fanaticism.
As great as the F50 is, as an expression of a time that has passed the snorting F40 is just as impressive.
1987 Ferrari F40General layout: Mid-engine, rear-driveEngine type: 2.9-liter, DOHC, 32-valve twin-turbocharged and -intercooled V-8Horsepower @ rpm: 478 @ 7000Transmission: 5-speed manualTop speed, mph: 201Original price: $417,000Current price: $500,000 (est.)
Read more: http://www.motortrend.com/features/archive/112_9606_1987_ferrari_f40/#ixzz1xKuTxwMb
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