Thank Frankel it's Friday: A hearty happy 30th to the Ferrari F40

The magazine was actually dated 1988, but its cover star had been launched the previous year, which means that impossibly advanced, ground-breaking supercar known as the F40 is now 30 years old. Put another way, it is far further away in time from today than it was from the E-type when it was new. How can this be? Three decades appear simply to have vanished.

How significant is the F40? Well, it was the first road car with a documented and verified top speed of above 200mph. 201.3mph if I remember correctly. It was also a very early adopter of carbon fibre, although more as cladding than as structural elements – for that we’d have to wait another five years for the launch of the McLaren F1. But to me I guess, its real importance is that it was the last road car to be signed off ready for production by the Old Man himself.

You may know Ferrari had his admiration for those who bought his road cars under quite close control but I expect he felt somewhat differently about those who tried to tame the F40. When asked about it his view left little room for interpretation: ‘This car is so fast it’ll make you shit your pants.’ Oh, how nice it would be to enjoy commensurate levels of candour from car company CEOs today.

I am however pleased to report that, in a literal sense, Ferrari got that wrong. When I first drove one it added nothing to my dry cleaning bill. What it did do was make me gasp and gibber, my passenger shriek and scream. And I bet it still would today.

The truth is the F40 had something that has never been recaptured by any manufacturer, not even the F1. The McLaren was so much faster there was no sensible comparison to make, but because it was also so civilised, practical and usable it lacked the Ferrari’s singularity of focus. Gordon Murray was a genuine fan of the F40 but his vision was for a car that was not just incredible to drive, but one that would be easy to live with too.

Ferrari took the opposing view, ignoring any meaningful provision of luggage space, ripping out the sound deadening and all extraneous equipment until the cabin was left as a hollowed out carbon-clad shell, with a felt dash, simple dials and cables in place of the door handles.

It was everything I ever wanted a Ferrari to be. I have no need for an Aston Martin or Porsche to be brutal and intimidating but had the F40 proven to be anything less, I’d have been disappointed. This was a Ferrari after all, Enzo’s last laugh, a car designed without compromise.

At first and appropriately enough, the F40 terrified me, with its power delivery provided with all the finesse of a caveman’s club. But I loved that wild side, that intrepid sense of adventure that accompanied every press of the pedal. And when I discovered also that, despite its rather unorthodox bedside manner, the F40 was actually easier to drive on the limit than many of the more normal Ferraris made at that time, I loved it even more.

And I still do. Indeed it was only in 2015 when I got to drive the LaFerrari that I realised the F40’s reign was over: I’d finally found a road car I enjoyed driving even more.

So please join me in celebrating the 30^th birthday of the F40: most cars improve from one generation to the next, but the F40 was so good it took Ferrari almost three decades to find a way of bettering it.