The Ferrari F40 was built as a technical tour de force to celebrate Ferrari’s first 40 years of achievement in a single model intended purely for the road.
By 1989 an IMSA GTO LM version had been built which had no factory backing, despite this Jean Alesi, and fellow Frenchman Jean-Pierre Jabouille, Jacques Laffite, Jean-Louis Schlesser, Olivier Grouillard, Michel Ferté, American Hurley Haywood and Belgian Eric van de Poele would all have a go challenging the dominant factory Audi 90’s, but could do no better than record a string of second and third places up until the end of 1990.
Today’s featured car started life as a 1989 road car, chassis #80856, that had been involved in some sort of accident before Robin Smith’s Simpson Engineering took the car on and converted it into a racer.
The long list of modifications includes, but is not limited to; installation of a roll cage for safety and additional stiffness, new competition spec fabricated and rose jointed suspension and uprights, adjustable anti roll bars, air jacks and competition spec brakes with balance adjustment.
The power output is said to be 790hp aided by engine modifications that included fitting Group C Lancia LC2 spec heads and cams.
The exact competition history of this vehicle on the internet appears to be a little clouded by Simpson Engineering’s F550 V12 powered Ferrari F40, but from what I gather this car has been raced in the British GT, Britcar and Pirelli Ferrari Open Series over the last 10 years with the primary drivers appearing to be Andrew Mott and Jacopo “son of Stingbrace” Sebastiani among others.
As of mid November this car has been up for sale, if you are in the market for such a wonderful vehicle you will find contact details on this linked web page, usual disclaimers and “Caveat Emptor” advice applies.
Thanks for joining me on this “Race Spec Conversion” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres”, I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be looking at another Bristol powered special. Don’t forget to come back now !
