Enzo's Last Ferrari: Making of the brutal F40

[360spider]

At ninety years old, Enzo Ferrari was keenly aware that his life was coming to an end, and was somewhat disappointed that Ferrari's dominance in international motorsport had faded somewhat over the years. As a result, Enzo wanted a new pet project put into the pipelines, something that could remind the world of the company's capabilities as a manufacturer as well as provide both a competitor to the Porsche 959 and come to be his masterpiece; the company's impending 40th anniversary provided just the right occasion for the car to debut. The plan was simple: create a vehicle that combined the company's best technologies into a no-frills sports car that would come as close as possible to being a full fledged race vehicle while still retaining the necessary equipment to be a street-legal product. It was the last car to be commissioned by Enzo himself before his death.

The Ferrari F40 is a mid-engine, rear-wheel drive, two-door coupé sports car produced by Ferrari from 1987 to 1992 as the successor to the Ferrari 288 GTO. From 1987 to 1989 it held the title as the world's fastest street-legal production car, and during its years of production, was Ferrari's fastest, most powerful, and most expensive car.

Having just recently completed two racing F40 GTEs, I'm going to build this F40 as a road going car. There will be quite a bit of improvements to already excellent Tamiya kit, I will use fair share of C/F decals, some aftermarket stuff - Studio 27, Acu-Stion, Scale Productions, Sakatsu, pro-Tech, and finally - Zero paints and clearcoats.



Tamiya kit is really good, but rather old, and it shows. Amount of mold lines, ejector pin marks and a tool that is just plain worn is quite evident. You can't build a good model without fixing it all, so I started with correcting all little imperfections on the chassis:




If you are familiar with the kit, you know that rear bodywork is a very ill fit, and requires a bit of massaging to fit right. I started with some sanding here and there to make the main body fit to the chassis:



Finally, the lid was sanded and test fitted to the body and chassis. I had to cut and sand the lid here and there, and finally made it to fit right:




Entire body was sanded and test fitted. It looks good now. There are couple of things that need to be done to it before some primer, but that is in the next update!

[da_ashman]

Another Alex build, fantastic cant wait to see how this one comes out.
Did you remove the mounting "pins" from the body? I had similar issue with my Monteshell F40, and was given advice to cut the pins and it will relax the body & allow the engine cover to fit more correctly.

[AustinMartin]

Wow! Very excited to see this!

[tuned.by.twenty]

Originally Posted by AustinMartin

Wow! Very excited to see this!

I'm looking forward to updates on this one.

[mrawl]

It's a beautiful car isn't it? It's the Porsche slant-nose meets Countach, meets Evo (!!) Ferrari. Have some fun with it Alex

[robrex]

Great to see another F40 in progress.....or is it two F40's? I suspect the Giallo Modena Zero paint will serve some purpose other than making a nice photographic partner to the Rosso Corsa?

I am keen as anything to see you tackle this project Alex. Bring on the next 'couple' of updates!

[klutz_100]

Originally Posted by robrex

suspect the Giallo Modena Zero paint will serve some purpose other than making a nice photographic partner to the Rosso Corsa?

I wonder.....
He does have a track record of trying to keep quiet about a double build but then goes and posts two sets of something in the "raw materials" shots... LOL

Bring it on, Alex opcorn:

[jano11]

Looking forward to be pleasantly surprised with the future update(s)!

[jochen kieslich]

As always it will be a great pleasure and interesting to watch your F40 project come to life (and maybe/hopefully to learn from it again).

Yours
Jochen

[cox]

Hello Alex

Another montage that looks beautiful. I look forward to following.

@ +

[MidMazar]

Sweet, i think we have a 09 moty winner. Looks like sms changed their decal packaging. Keep us posted as this will turn out great.

[endac]

Nice project, looking forward to seeing more.

[Ralphymeyer]

Can't wait to see what you do to this thing...

[360spider]

Thanks for the kind words guys, sorry i left you all hanging, my son was sick for the last couple of weeks, so I was busy with other "stuff". Had some time to built though, and here is where we are on this build so far:

Side sills were corrected to eliminate that ugly gap/seam, and windows were trimmed to fit the new bodywork:










Few coats of primer, gray, white, then Zero Giallo Modena, 3 coats, then Zero Pre-Thinned Clear (which I didn't like this time, new batch -too much thinner, it cured with HUGE texture and required lots of polishing with 3M compound, then Tamiya, then wax), but turned out well in the end:









That's all for now.

[ales]

I'm going to use that window sills solution of yours!

Giallo suits the car perfectly and it's turned out great, as always.