RE: Ferrari F40: PH Used Buying Guide
Discussion
DCBath said:
So i sold my 1992 F40 a few months ago after 8 years of glorious ownership. In those 8 years i covered 24,000km in it.
A few thoughts:
- cars don’t start at £850k as the article suggests. Digging around and looking in europe/ US you can find a car at £670-720k.
- putting miles on the car crushes the value and the ability to sell the car. Mine was a two owner car with 6k km on it when i bought it. If i had kept it in a garage and just looked at it, it would have been worth another 150-200k when i sold it.
- most people who buy these cars don’t really drive them, only a small subset of owners actually get out and put some miles on them. Mine was out and about constantly.
- service is ridiculously cheap, the car completely reliable. Mine was taken care of by the (utterly superb) Bob Houghton. He also helped me find a car.
- I would avoid franchise Ferrari dealers like the plague unless you want a ‘FFSH’
- one mechanical issue is aircon. It struggled even when well serviced.
- new tyres make a massive difference to the fun that you can have in the car.
- i also put an Alcantara Momo Sterling wheel and a fire extinguisher in it.
- mine was a cat/adjust car. I needed the adjust given my driveway, but i really had no problems with the adjuster system.
- insuring the car to use away from home was a real pain. Insurers are absolutely pillage anyone who wants to use the car and leave it overnight anywhere. That got pretty expensive.
Having sold the car earlier this year I am already wondering how i can get back in one at some point. I bought a McLaren 570s to satisfy my need to have a car that i can use and enjoy, it is brilliant, but it’s no F40. Having said that, i could buy 6 570’s for the price of the F40...
Incredibly useful post, thank you for sharing your insight.A few thoughts:
- cars don’t start at £850k as the article suggests. Digging around and looking in europe/ US you can find a car at £670-720k.
- putting miles on the car crushes the value and the ability to sell the car. Mine was a two owner car with 6k km on it when i bought it. If i had kept it in a garage and just looked at it, it would have been worth another 150-200k when i sold it.
- most people who buy these cars don’t really drive them, only a small subset of owners actually get out and put some miles on them. Mine was out and about constantly.
- service is ridiculously cheap, the car completely reliable. Mine was taken care of by the (utterly superb) Bob Houghton. He also helped me find a car.
- I would avoid franchise Ferrari dealers like the plague unless you want a ‘FFSH’
- one mechanical issue is aircon. It struggled even when well serviced.
- new tyres make a massive difference to the fun that you can have in the car.
- i also put an Alcantara Momo Sterling wheel and a fire extinguisher in it.
- mine was a cat/adjust car. I needed the adjust given my driveway, but i really had no problems with the adjuster system.
- insuring the car to use away from home was a real pain. Insurers are absolutely pillage anyone who wants to use the car and leave it overnight anywhere. That got pretty expensive.
Having sold the car earlier this year I am already wondering how i can get back in one at some point. I bought a McLaren 570s to satisfy my need to have a car that i can use and enjoy, it is brilliant, but it’s no F40. Having said that, i could buy 6 570’s for the price of the F40...
If you don’t mind me asking, what was the insurance premium like? Given that you owned it for 8 years and only sold this year, I imagine the values sky rocketed during your ownership and therefore insurance premiums with it?
With my 360 I found my insurance going up despite my age increasing, due to the value going up every year. I can only imagine that issue was magnified 10 fold with an F40.
You also mentioned that using the car crushed it’s value and ability to sell. Just how difficult was the sale process given the mileage on the car?
Top marks for using it by the way, it’s the way it should be!
When I achieve my goals and get into the market for an F40 I think I’d rather buy a high mileage example I can use and not worry about resale.
I was lucky enough to spend an hour being driven and then driving an F40 around rural England, as the number one car of my youth it was such a privilege.
I had to negotiate an A road re surfacing roadworks with a guy with a hand held Stop and Go sign, he and his mates supervised us dropping carefully over the small ridge, getting down on their knees to check for clearance. With the owners encouragement I paused on the other side and gave it a proper thrashing, I could see the road guys going wild in the mirror
This is quite honestly one of the finest days in my life, it’s a fabulous car and worthy of being my number one car for all those years. I drove a 275GTB that day as well, absolutely beautiful but not as exciting as the F40.
I had to negotiate an A road re surfacing roadworks with a guy with a hand held Stop and Go sign, he and his mates supervised us dropping carefully over the small ridge, getting down on their knees to check for clearance. With the owners encouragement I paused on the other side and gave it a proper thrashing, I could see the road guys going wild in the mirror
This is quite honestly one of the finest days in my life, it’s a fabulous car and worthy of being my number one car for all those years. I drove a 275GTB that day as well, absolutely beautiful but not as exciting as the F40.
topless360 said:
DCBath said:
So i sold my 1992 F40 a few months ago after 8 years of glorious ownership. In those 8 years i covered 24,000km in it.
A few thoughts:
- cars don’t start at £850k as the article suggests. Digging around and looking in europe/ US you can find a car at £670-720k.
- putting miles on the car crushes the value and the ability to sell the car. Mine was a two owner car with 6k km on it when i bought it. If i had kept it in a garage and just looked at it, it would have been worth another 150-200k when i sold it.
- most people who buy these cars don’t really drive them, only a small subset of owners actually get out and put some miles on them. Mine was out and about constantly.
- service is ridiculously cheap, the car completely reliable. Mine was taken care of by the (utterly superb) Bob Houghton. He also helped me find a car.
- I would avoid franchise Ferrari dealers like the plague unless you want a ‘FFSH’
- one mechanical issue is aircon. It struggled even when well serviced.
- new tyres make a massive difference to the fun that you can have in the car.
- i also put an Alcantara Momo Sterling wheel and a fire extinguisher in it.
- mine was a cat/adjust car. I needed the adjust given my driveway, but i really had no problems with the adjuster system.
- insuring the car to use away from home was a real pain. Insurers are absolutely pillage anyone who wants to use the car and leave it overnight anywhere. That got pretty expensive.
Having sold the car earlier this year I am already wondering how i can get back in one at some point. I bought a McLaren 570s to satisfy my need to have a car that i can use and enjoy, it is brilliant, but it’s no F40. Having said that, i could buy 6 570’s for the price of the F40...
Incredibly useful post, thank you for sharing your insight.A few thoughts:
- cars don’t start at £850k as the article suggests. Digging around and looking in europe/ US you can find a car at £670-720k.
- putting miles on the car crushes the value and the ability to sell the car. Mine was a two owner car with 6k km on it when i bought it. If i had kept it in a garage and just looked at it, it would have been worth another 150-200k when i sold it.
- most people who buy these cars don’t really drive them, only a small subset of owners actually get out and put some miles on them. Mine was out and about constantly.
- service is ridiculously cheap, the car completely reliable. Mine was taken care of by the (utterly superb) Bob Houghton. He also helped me find a car.
- I would avoid franchise Ferrari dealers like the plague unless you want a ‘FFSH’
- one mechanical issue is aircon. It struggled even when well serviced.
- new tyres make a massive difference to the fun that you can have in the car.
- i also put an Alcantara Momo Sterling wheel and a fire extinguisher in it.
- mine was a cat/adjust car. I needed the adjust given my driveway, but i really had no problems with the adjuster system.
- insuring the car to use away from home was a real pain. Insurers are absolutely pillage anyone who wants to use the car and leave it overnight anywhere. That got pretty expensive.
Having sold the car earlier this year I am already wondering how i can get back in one at some point. I bought a McLaren 570s to satisfy my need to have a car that i can use and enjoy, it is brilliant, but it’s no F40. Having said that, i could buy 6 570’s for the price of the F40...
If you don’t mind me asking, what was the insurance premium like? Given that you owned it for 8 years and only sold this year, I imagine the values sky rocketed during your ownership and therefore insurance premiums with it?
With my 360 I found my insurance going up despite my age increasing, due to the value going up every year. I can only imagine that issue was magnified 10 fold with an F40.
You also mentioned that using the car crushed it’s value and ability to sell. Just how difficult was the sale process given the mileage on the car?
Top marks for using it by the way, it’s the way it should be!
When I achieve my goals and get into the market for an F40 I think I’d rather buy a high mileage example I can use and not worry about resale.
It took me about 6 months to sell the car in a market that every dealer said was ‘red hot’. In those 6 months i saw just three realistic bids. The car ended up going to Holland, happily sold by Will Stone. My guess the miles I put on it cost me 150-200k.. pretty expensive but really worth it.
On the insurance, i think the premium was about 8k, but to leave it outside overnight or take it to Switzerland or Paris the insurer couldn’t get it underwritten. So it became impossible to travel with the car.
I think the UK government will end up putting capital gains tax on cars. When they do, values will plummet. I hope i can buy a car again when (or if) that happens!
Leins said:
seefarr said:
Leins said:
I'd have thought your average F40 takes quite a number of years to rack up 6k miles, so probably makes little difference re belt replacement anyway
PH said:
The cambelt should be replaced every two years
Wonder how many have racked up 6k miles in less than 2 years though
Do ya feel lucky?!
The things a lot of these costs seem high but are relative peanuts as a % of the car purchase when compared to a Focus or whatever.
DCBath said:
I think the UK government will end up putting capital gains tax on cars. When they do, values will plummet. I hope i can buy a car again when (or if) that happens!
The US charge sales tax on the purchase of used cars even when private. This is why license plates get switched for each new owner. The rate changes per state with some being 0% but others can be as high as 9%. If trading in, you only pay on the difference in value and not the full amount. Point being, they capture a lot of revenue this way and it makes it much more expensive to speculate on cars as you need to factor in an upto 10% uplift before you break even.
Also, lots of cars will not meet state emissions requirements. As a result, lots of cars will be bought to look at in California.
DCBath said:
Sure, thanks.
It took me about 6 months to sell the car in a market that every dealer said was ‘red hot’. In those 6 months i saw just three realistic bids. The car ended up going to Holland, happily sold by Will Stone. My guess the miles I put on it cost me 150-200k.. pretty expensive but really worth it.
On the insurance, i think the premium was about 8k, but to leave it outside overnight or take it to Switzerland or Paris the insurer couldn’t get it underwritten. So it became impossible to travel with the car.
I think the UK government will end up putting capital gains tax on cars. When they do, values will plummet. I hope i can buy a car again when (or if) that happens!
I doubt it. That would make cgt losses deductible and there are far more losses than gains. Secondly afaik, whenever cgt has been added to something the cost basis has been set at introduction not retrospectively.It took me about 6 months to sell the car in a market that every dealer said was ‘red hot’. In those 6 months i saw just three realistic bids. The car ended up going to Holland, happily sold by Will Stone. My guess the miles I put on it cost me 150-200k.. pretty expensive but really worth it.
On the insurance, i think the premium was about 8k, but to leave it outside overnight or take it to Switzerland or Paris the insurer couldn’t get it underwritten. So it became impossible to travel with the car.
I think the UK government will end up putting capital gains tax on cars. When they do, values will plummet. I hope i can buy a car again when (or if) that happens!
DCBath said:
Sure, thanks.
On the insurance, i think the premium was about 8k, but to leave it outside overnight or take it to Switzerland or Paris the insurer couldn’t get it underwritten. So it became impossible to travel with the car.
I wonder if the insurance issue will dictate the ceiling price for F40’s, as I imagine quite a few owners still use their cars and the increase in value will make it impossible to get reasonable insurance for actual usage as you have found.On the insurance, i think the premium was about 8k, but to leave it outside overnight or take it to Switzerland or Paris the insurer couldn’t get it underwritten. So it became impossible to travel with the car.
That and the relatively high production numbers.
The Sultan of Brunei had a number of right-hand drive F40's made.
No one is sure of the exact numbers but most people think that he had seven right-hand drive cars, because Pininfarina would only do the conversion if he ordered at least six, so he went with seven.
A couple of the Sultan's cars have been sold by Ferrari experts Talacrest.
No one is sure of the exact numbers but most people think that he had seven right-hand drive cars, because Pininfarina would only do the conversion if he ordered at least six, so he went with seven.
A couple of the Sultan's cars have been sold by Ferrari experts Talacrest.
GlowRed said:
The Sultan of Brunei had a number of right-hand drive F40's made.
No one is sure of the exact numbers but most people think that he had seven right-hand drive cars, because Pininfarina would only do the conversion if he ordered at least six, so he went with seven.
A couple of the Sultan's cars have been sold by Ferrari experts Talacrest.
No one is sure of the exact numbers but most people think that he had seven right-hand drive cars, because Pininfarina would only do the conversion if he ordered at least six, so he went with seven.
A couple of the Sultan's cars have been sold by Ferrari experts Talacrest.
GlowRed said:
No one is sure of the exact numbers but most people think that he had seven right-hand drive cars, because Pininfarina would only do the conversion if he ordered at least six, so he went with seven.
I heard from someone who would know that Mr Jeffrey Brunei would buy his specials in batches of six anyway - all of them. In the glory days, six specials from Pininfarina would come with a bonus special edition of something else, but later when funds were tighter the specials had to be paid for. I did at one point see one of these later specials which was a Daytona Spider body on top of a 550 chassis with an SLK drop-top hard roof. All the body panels were made off original Daytona bucks, apparently.
PAUL500 said:
At least two of those F40s available had previously burned to the ground, virtually nothing left.
That's horrific. Presumably this type of thing would be picked up during a PPI at a specialist or dealer?If I was spending my hard earned £700k on my dream car I'd be devastated if I later learned of such history.
All depends on the quality of the re build as to whether it would be picked up, however they would not know the history as such, especially as these cars often move between countries.
At least one of them was a cat b breaker here, so should not ever be re registered again in the UK, but taken to another country, re registered then brought back, the old story is often lost and it gets a fresh title, only a VIN based HPI would pick up on the fact.
The power of the internet is such that when these cars resurface these days they often get linked back to their past. A few mins in the F40 section of fchat will tell anyone everything they need to know.
Two of the cars were removed from auction quite recently when their past lives resurfaced, that was not declared in the auction details, one had a nasty fatality from the original crash.
At the end of the day those rebuilt cars are still F40s and under a documented rebuild and full disclosure they would still find owners at the right price.
At least one of them was a cat b breaker here, so should not ever be re registered again in the UK, but taken to another country, re registered then brought back, the old story is often lost and it gets a fresh title, only a VIN based HPI would pick up on the fact.
The power of the internet is such that when these cars resurface these days they often get linked back to their past. A few mins in the F40 section of fchat will tell anyone everything they need to know.
Two of the cars were removed from auction quite recently when their past lives resurfaced, that was not declared in the auction details, one had a nasty fatality from the original crash.
At the end of the day those rebuilt cars are still F40s and under a documented rebuild and full disclosure they would still find owners at the right price.
Edited by PAUL500 on Monday 18th December 00:02
aaron_2000 said:
I think as long as the rebuild was done to a good standard then it wouldn't be an issue, maybe even a plus. A story behind a car is often a good seller, like Rowan Atkinson's F1.
Just what I was going to say. Other than the yellow delivery miles car recently sold by Tom Hartley Jnr (which will probably never be sold) Atkinson's F1 is probably the closest thing to a 'new' F1 PAUL500 said:
Like any car, be it a focus or a ferrari, the ones at the bottom of the foodchain are there for a reason.
At least two of those F40s available had previously burned to the ground, virtually nothing left.
No one sells prime steak for mincemeat money in any market.
Which F40s are you refering to? The Sultans?At least two of those F40s available had previously burned to the ground, virtually nothing left.
No one sells prime steak for mincemeat money in any market.
topless360 said:
DCBath said:
Sure, thanks.
On the insurance, i think the premium was about 8k, but to leave it outside overnight or take it to Switzerland or Paris the insurer couldn’t get it underwritten. So it became impossible to travel with the car.
I wonder if the insurance issue will dictate the ceiling price for F40’s, as I imagine quite a few owners still use their cars and the increase in value will make it impossible to get reasonable insurance for actual usage as you have found.On the insurance, i think the premium was about 8k, but to leave it outside overnight or take it to Switzerland or Paris the insurer couldn’t get it underwritten. So it became impossible to travel with the car.
That and the relatively high production numbers.
LP670 said:
PAUL500 said:
Like any car, be it a focus or a ferrari, the ones at the bottom of the foodchain are there for a reason.
At least two of those F40s available had previously burned to the ground, virtually nothing left.
No one sells prime steak for mincemeat money in any market.
Which F40s are you refering to? The Sultans?At least two of those F40s available had previously burned to the ground, virtually nothing left.
No one sells prime steak for mincemeat money in any market.
topless360 said:
DCBath said:
Sure, thanks.
On the insurance, i think the premium was about 8k, but to leave it outside overnight or take it to Switzerland or Paris the insurer couldn’t get it underwritten. So it became impossible to travel with the car.
I wonder if the insurance issue will dictate the ceiling price for F40’s, as I imagine quite a few owners still use their cars and the increase in value will make it impossible to get reasonable insurance for actual usage as you have found.On the insurance, i think the premium was about 8k, but to leave it outside overnight or take it to Switzerland or Paris the insurer couldn’t get it underwritten. So it became impossible to travel with the car.
That and the relatively high production numbers.
topless360 said:
I wonder if the insurance issue will dictate the ceiling price for F40’s, as I imagine quite a few owners still use their cars and the increase in value will make it impossible to get reasonable insurance for actual usage as you have found.
That and the relatively high production numbers.
I doubt it and insurance costs have never been unreasonable. That and the relatively high production numbers.
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