The Ferrari F50 Is a $3 Million Supercar Icon

this is a 1995

ferrari

f-50 and it is simply one of the best modern

ferrari

s ferrari says they built only 350 of these for the entire planet and this is one of them it was ferrari's flagship

supercar

of the 1990s also worth more of 3

million

dollars as this is one of the most sought after modern ferraris and today I will review it before starting. Be sure to check out the cars and bids which is my new online auction website for car enthusiasts that has cool cars from the modern era. era, if you are looking to sell or buy a modern and attractive car, visit carsandbids.com.

We have an incredible selection of cars auctioned live right now that you can bid on, view cars and bid on. autos and bids.com, I have borrowed it. this f50 from david lee, who is a well known car and ferrari collector here in southern california, you can follow david on instagram, the name you see on the screen and you should follow him because he has this car, the f40, enzo and the ferrari and many other amazing cars too. I'll talk to David a little later about this car and the rest of his collection, so let's talk about the f50, as you probably already know, Ferrari has five modern

supercar

s that generate tremendous interest. and the attraction among collectors is the 288 gto the f40 the f50 the enzo and the ferrari the f50 is the second rarest of the group with only 350 units manufactured according to ferrari, making it an especially difficult acquisition for collectors looking assemble the complete set. and that is one of the main reasons why the values ​​of these have skyrocketed in recent years, nowadays a good f50 can cost three

million

dollars or more, of course there is also the engine, this car has a v12, but not just any v12, its engine was literally derived from the ferrari.

A Formula One racing car, making it the last street car to have an engine derived from Formula One. It produces around 510 horsepower and around 350 pound-feet of torque and sends this car 0 to 60 in 3.8 seconds on its way to top speed. just over 200 miles per hour and then there's the styling, the f50 has always been a bit controversial, although I've always loved it, it's not the classic wedge shape like the f40, it was also the only way it could be opened ferrari supercar from roof to the ultra rare la ferrari aperta Still, the f50 has always been a kind of forgotten ferrari supercar, always in the shadow of the more beloved and remembered f40, at least until recent years, when collectors have focused their interest in this car and its values.

They have started to fire and today I am going to review it first. I will take you on a tour of the f50 and show you all the quirks and features of one of the most desirable incredible specials. and valuable modern Ferraris, then I'll take it out on the road and drive it. I'm terrified and then I'll give it a dig score. Well, I'll start with the quirks and features of the F50 by opening above and that means starting with the key that has an unusual feature, namely that it can be folded. You can see here that it is a key and then you can bend it to be a key at a 90 degree angle, apparently they did this to make it easier. to fold it so you can store it somewhere, but it only folds at 90 degrees, it doesn't fold completely like most folding keys, so the key part will always stick out even when folded, it was a very curious thing.

Ferrari did it on all of their models from this time period now, as far as opening the door, there is a pretty simple door handle as you can't see any door handles with weird tricks like many 90's supercars, just walk over and stick your fingers in this little hole next. to the door handle, pull it and then the door opens exactly as you would expect. Now the F50 is open, but I'm not going to go inside just yet. Instead, I want to start with the front compartment because I've always wondered what's under those giant nostrils on the F50, so to get into the front compartment there's a little latch on the driver's side under the dash, you pull it and that opens the front compartment and then you can open it and it opens to this position.

It's actually quite a large component, it doesn't simply open and you could argue that it's a two person job as you have to be very careful not to bend anything, but anyway, once it's here, some interesting quirks . In the front compartment there's not a lot of luggage storage up here, although in theory that's where the trunk would be the only storage place you have, it's this carbon fiber panel that's shaped like a storage area, everything else is functional. some purpose of the car, so you don't really have as much space in the front trunk to store your luggage as you might expect, sorry said article, you do have it in the front compartment next to the small storage area on these giants. fans for cooling of course, and that explains the nostrils, this unique distinguishing feature of the F50's design, these fans are open to the outside for airflow and have to have fairly large openings for air to enter, as they are Quite large fans, so the car has quite large openings. nostrils in the front and that's why, then two more interesting items in the front compartment, one is on the passenger side, in the front corner of the car, it has this little zipper bag that stays in place using two leather straps.

That bag contains tires. Sealant There's obviously no room in this car for a spare tire, so you get that sealant in case you get a flat on your F50 and want to patch the tire on the side of the road. The other interesting thing in this front compartment is a little plate here that gives you the serial number of your f-50 out of the total production of 349 cars and it's cool to see that this may not be as nice as a Porsche interior plate that It tells you precisely where your special edition GT3 Touring R RS fits, but that plate is a little more special, don't you think?

And next we move on to the interior of the F50, but before we get in here I want to talk about the door panel because this car has many more luxuries than the F40 that preceded it. and a good example of that is on the door panel for example, it has a small storage cubby where you can put a wallet for example, a great luxury compared to the carbon fiber white flat panel of the F40, and on the F50 it has a door handle. Check this out, you can pull this and open the door quite luxuriously compared to the F40's pull cord to get out.

The F50 was clearly designed with more amenities in mind, such as a door handle that is also noticeable on the door panel. You can see there is a crank for the window now the f40 had it too but it's still worth mentioning to show you how to roll down the window on a ferrari f50 but anyway, then it's time to climb inside the f50 and you can see there is a huge door threshold. here and on the front you have this little rubber panel that looks like a bath mat. I guess it's because they know you'll be dragging your feet over the door sill and they don't want you scratching carbon fiber or a painted surface. so you have rubber there, instead you also have four diagonal lines of rubber on the front corner of the door panel, I think for exactly this same purpose, but anyway you do it over the door cell and the first thing you notice here it is at least the first.

What I noticed are the mats that say F50 in large letters with the F50 font. I love the way they look and would love to have a set of these in my Kia just for irony, although I suspect a pair of F50 mats will probably go for like nine grand on eBay I can still dream and the next thing, of course, the next thing Notes are the seats that are very distinctive in their appearance, on the one hand, black on the outside, red in the center, they are also very tight, even compared to modern ones. The sport seats hug you very close to prevent you from slipping in corners and you can see that the seat belt is integrated into the seats, part of it passes through a hole on one side and then connects to a buckle on the other.

On the other side, near the center tunnel, that buckle also passes through a hole in the seats, so the belt and the seat itself live together in harmony, somewhat intertwined, but all the same, moving further towards the interior of the F50, I want to talk between the seats where the most prominent ones are located. The element here is the shifter and not just any shifter, but a closed six-speed manual. Now the F40 has a dogleg, meaning it's down and left first, but in the F50 it's a six-speed transmission with a traditional layout. up and to the left and the reverse gear is all the way to the right and down, now you can see that the gear pattern is not printed on the gear lever but is carbon fiber with a ferrari horse.

Instead the pattern is printed next to the shifter so it is always there but not on the shifter and then also between the seats next to the shifter you have the climate controls but they are Limited to just two dials, on the left you have the fan speed and on the right you have the air temperature and yes this car has air conditioning but that's all it controls. You can control how much air you want and at what temperature you want it, and you can see that the air vents on this car are quite limited and there are also on the dash. only three and they're all in the middle you don't have separate climate vents on the driver side or passenger side like basically every other car this is all you get but it's pretty much all you need because it's a nice Small interior, those vents really do the job and beyond the vents in the dash that point at the passengers, there are also three more vents at the top of the dash that point at the windshield in case you want use the defroster, but as I showed.

Before there is no dial to turn on the defroster so if you want to use it just close the vents for the passengers and open the vents for the windshield and then the air will go towards the windshield instead of towards the passengers if you want change. That simply closes the vents at the top of the dash, reopens the ones facing the passengers, and then turns off the defroster. We're keeping it really simple in terms of f50 climate control, but anyway, going back between the seats, it's the next interesting one. The important thing here is the parking brake, which isn't really that interesting, but that's where it is and that's how it works in the F50.

You also have a button for the hazard lights here, which isn't that unusual except that you press it to turn. It turns on and they make a crazy noise, listen I wouldn't find that noise all that strange except it's the same noise this car makes when you turn on the turn signal every time you go to signal a lane change or a turn, I'm not sure As to why they felt the need to make such a strange noise to accompany the turn signals, maybe they thought that the normal clicking sound couldn't be heard over the engine sound, but that's the sound of the turn signal. in the Ferrari.

F50, interestingly, and then between the seats, this time between the backrests, you have this small leather storage area that seems to leave room for a book. I assume it's for the owner's manual, which he isn't in the car at the moment. It probably fits perfectly in there and that's a good place for it because this car doesn't have a glove box so keep your manual in there and maybe your registration paperwork in case you get pulled over and finally speaking of keeping one more item in this area behind the seats. you have a small storage area and you can see that there are little leather straps here that can hold some luggage.

This car came with fitted luggage. We'll talk more about that in a moment, but that's where one of the pieces goes directly behind the seats. Little more space to add to that cavernous space you have in the front compartment, and then one of the strangest quirks of the F50 has to be the interior rear-view mirror, which has this strange shape. It's very strange and I didn't expect that. From this car it turns out that the shape of this mirror is designed to perfectly correspond to the shape of the rear window behind the seats. Any other shape of mirror would have an extra mirror which wouldn't help you see out anyway as the window is only a certain size and that's why you have your mirror in that rather strange shape on the F50, who knew , but anyway, next we move on to turning on the F50, which has an interesting procedure: first you unfold the bent key and then you glue it on. on ignition, which is pretty standard, soOf course, then you press this rubber button to start the engine just below the ignition and only then the car starts.

You can't just turn the key, you have to press the button after you've turned the key, which is a little unusual, but that's how it works and then once you start the car, probably the biggest surprise is the gauge cluster, which is largely electronic, very different from this analog car. You can see all kinds of different colors and readings here. now on the left you have all the engine gauges showing temperature, oil pressure, fuel level, that sort of thing, on the right you have the speedometer, quite simple, which speaks for itself and in the middle you have the tachometer and you can see that the highest number on the tachometer is 10,000 rpm, you won't find that in basically any other car it's because of the f50's formula one derived engine and also one last thing on that gauge cluster on the back Bottom right, it has a small screen. which currently shows the total mileage of this vehicle and also a small pixel screen that looks like an enemy ship that you might find in the asteroid video game.

Now that screen can be configured under the steering column on the right, you have two little black circular buttons if you press. the one on the right you can see it goes through several different elements on this screen, some of which are quite cryptic, for example there's the number 30 with like a transmitter, I'm not quite sure what that is, you keep pressing the button and you get to this thing that looks like half a sedan with an antenna sticking out the back, again I'm not really sure what that is, it's almost like they designed these things to be as cryptic as possible because no logical person could easily interpret that now which I mentioned, you have two little circular buttons in this area under the steering column, the one on the left is a little simpler, you press that and they can show a kilometers per hour reading, since the speedometer is in miles per hour, They thought that if you ever wanted to see miles per hour, it would be pretty easy to let you hit that button and increase your speed to have that redundancy. and then some other interesting controls on this car, for one, to the left of the steering wheel in the gauge cluster, you have some switches, one of which is the axle lift.

Press this and the front of the car lifts up. pretty impressive this is a 1995 model this car is 25 years old and has an axle lift it had to be one of the first cars with this feature and it sure comes in handy when trying to get over low curbs or steep roads since this car sits so low , the next control worth mentioning is in the center of the steering wheel, you have the horn that sounds like this. Yes, the F50's horn sounds normal, which is actually a surprise because many Ferraris of this era had this. a strange air horn that sounded like a musical note, but not the F50, not so normal here, the headlights work fine, there is a stem that sticks out of the steering column to the left, you turn it forward and then the headlights come on.

Pretty standard and you pull it forward and you can turn the lights back on. Pretty standard, but then it gets weird, you want to turn on the high beams permanently, you push this cylinder head down like a turn signal lever and then the high beams come on. You can also push this stock up like a turn signal lever, but if you do, nothing noticeable happens, the lights don't change in any way, but that control is available to you, it's almost as if this is a turn signal lever. turn signal that they repurposed to make you turn on the lights. so normally it would be putting the turn signal on the left and then you also have the possibility of the turn signal on the right, but they didn't have anything for it, so now it's there, interestingly enough, the turn signal on this car It is operated by a separate lever that also comes out of the left side of the steering column and that is normal, push it up to turn right, down to turn left, so you have two separate levers coming out of the steering column and both can operate in the same way, push them up or down. but only one is actually the turn signals, very strange way to do it and by the way the lights themselves are also a bit strange when you just turn on the normal headlights, what comes on are the little outside lights on the housing of the headlight when you go to Turn on the high beams and then the bigger headlights come on, so you'll only have the bigger lights on if you have the headlights on.

The taillights are pretty standard, just four circles, like on most Ferrari models of this one. was and the rear turn signal is a small orange circle inside the outer circle tail light in the rear in case you were wondering how the F50 rear turn signal works and then we move on to the F50 engine and there's a lot to do. To start, let's say we open the engine cover to make a small latch in the driver's door sill area at the rear. You pull it and then that opens the engine cover, then you open it and it's a pretty big piece.

As you can see this really should be a two person job, one can do it but it's heavy and you don't want to flex anything, but once you lift the engine cover these two fittings on either side lock into place and lock it into place. they maintain. open and then you can look at the engine and it really is a sight to see partly because you can see everything back here, with no cover, a lot of the bodywork is removed, so everything is visible and it really is beautiful and special and cool to be able to see it all now, as I mentioned this is a 4.7 liter V12 derived from a Formula One car engine from a few years ago, this car has about 510 horsepower and about 350 pound-feet of torque.

These may not seem like huge numbers for a Ferrari supercar, but it only weighs around 3,000 pounds, which is pretty good, and it still managed to do 0-60 in 3.8 seconds and hit a top speed of over 200 miles per hour, which It was a big deal in '95. Now, two other interesting elements. In the engine area, on the one hand, if you look here, you can see the internal suspension. The suspension is not directly on the wheels on this car, but for packaging and probably weight distribution reasons. It's deeper inside, you don't see that as often. Of course the other big issue about the engine is how it sounds, an F1 derived v12 has to sound pretty good, well let's listen and by the way before we move on to the rest of the exterior elements of this car let's take a look at How The car looks blown up with the rear open and the front open, much of the body coming off of these two large panels.

It's not an angle you see very often with the F50, frankly there is no angle at all, but it is unusual and noteworthy with these two. The large panels aren't where they normally belong, and here are a few other important elements of the F50 worth mentioning. While I'm overseas, I've always loved the look of the rear grill. Here you can see their mesh and you can look at that and again see a lot of the engine and the engine bay, if you want to see what's going on back there, they definitely have everything on display, which makes sense because it's beautiful and really special and at least Below are some other exterior features of the F50, one being this giant wing. which is very distinctive because it builds up along the entire side of the car and then explodes like a giant wing at the end.

It's very different from the F40's wing that just sticks right on the back of the car. At a 90 degree angle, the F50 had a much smoother and more gradual wing, although it ultimately reaches at least as high as that of the F40. and also another notable exterior design element on this car are the wheels, which I have always found interesting, on the one hand, its central locking wheels, like those on racing cars, it is not surprising that the Ferrari supercar from this era is what I especially like. Although it's the way they were designed, the front wheels are a little flat with a design, but they mostly just look like normal car wheels.

The good thing is that the rear wheels have the same design but are inserted inside the wheel, so they are pushed in a little more and there are more lips. I've always loved this because it makes the wheel feel wider at the rear, which of course is because there are wider tires at the rear, but it really focuses your eyes and makes you realize that The rear tires are wider and thicker and it adds more depth and drama to the rear of this car rather than just having four wheels that look identical. I really like how they did it with the f50 wheels and Also another important exterior element is the fuel door, it is on the driver's side and to open it you simply put your hand in this hole and open it and then you can unscrew the fuel cap and putting fuel in your F50, pretty simple and finally our The last exterior element to discuss with this car is the top situation when you had an F50, you had three different options of how you wanted to drive it in relation to the top, for one you have the soft top, As you can see here, you rarely see an F50 soft top in place.

I've never seen it before but this is what the F50 looks like with the soft top on or you could remove the soft top and then go back to having a targa or convertible experience. This was unusual for a Ferrari supercar. The F50 was the only open-top Ferrari supercar until the Laferrari Aperta a couple of years ago, but you also had another option and that was a hardtop. If you wanted to drive your F50 in coupe mode, it was a color matched hardtop and it was quite large, there was nowhere in the car you could put it when you weren't using it, instead the f50's top is carried in this box.

It's big in the f50 community. This is known as the circus box because it looks like the type that circuses and carnivals use to transport their stuff and when F50s change hands, one of the first questions potential buyers ask is whether it comes with the circus box and of course as you can see this one now does it as you would expect given that there is a separate giant box for the top of this car, it's not exactly easy to get it into place, in fact it's quite cumbersome , it's not like most target roof cars, where you just lock it down and go.

I've heard that Ferrari dealers charge one to two hours of labor just to put the roof on or off, so most F50 owners choose to turn it on or off and then stick with it for a period of time , generally all of your property. and by the way, the circus box was not the only accessory that accompanied the f50, you also have luggage and here is a piece of the luggage that you can see, it is designed to match the look of the seats with the red interior and it looks very cool over there. There were several pieces that were placed in various places on the car.

You also got seat covers that were custom fit for the seat size in the F50. I guess maybe you could stick them on when you parked the car outside with the roof off so the seats wouldn't get damaged or rained on or anything, but my favorite F50 accessory is definitely the shoes. Each F50 came new with special shoes. Open this box. This is the original F50 shoe box and you can see the F50 shoes. Now this car is 25 years old. Dude, most people have already lost their f50 shoes, but this car still has them. I have heard about f50 shoes since I was a kid and this is a pair of them.

I had never seen or touched them before these were the shoes you bought when you ordered your new f50 and yes I think you were able to choose a size now these are driving shoes and the pedal box on the f50 is a little offset and a little tight . I'll mention it more when I drive it later and So these shoes were maybe useful for sticking your feet into the F50's pedal box to get the pedals going, but that's the story of the F50 shoes that still accompany this car 25 years after it was sold new and those are the quirks and features of the Ferrari F50. and now we're going to talk a little bit with David Lee, the owner of the car, about what it's like to have this car and this incredible collection, so David tells us about the F50.

Well, the F50 is just an amazing car. It represents the 50th anniversary of Ferrari and it's an ultra supercar, so we have production cars that are cool and every 10 years they come out with some kind of special ultra-low production car. Now the F50 is different because it is the first time they use it. a full fiber throughout the chassis, throughout the body, um, they also took an F1 engine and put it in this production car, so when we drive it later you will hear the sound and everything that sounds like the F1. The engine is very different, the other interesting thing among ultra supercars, to walk for a long timetime, this was the only roadster, so we had a soft top, a right hard top, if you have the collection like you do, yes, the F50 is the second hardest to get because you know it's the second rarest.

Basically, did you have a hard time finding a good one? What is the process? It was very difficult to find one and you know I like good quality ones etc. um the 288 was hard to find for sure and the f50 was also very hard to find comparatively the f40 is more common compared to this car basically I mean there are like five times as many yeah these are never the ones You look good, right? Do you drive it often? I know I drive it a lot um and uh, but you know what? Because I have over 30 cars so it's a little hard to get to the wall, yeah I get it and when I drive it I don't drive it around the block I mean I have a good driver I probably drove it between 50 and 70 miles when the f50 came out there was some controversy because the f40 was an

icon

compared to the f40, what do you think of this car?

Well, you know, the f40 is a v8. very balanced biturbo very fast very agile I mean it's a great car um when they started doing this it was a little bit different because now they're putting a v12 and an engine in there you know, new body and new uh drivetrans, a lot of drivers think that they don't know honed to the end zone, but you know, as a driver as an owner, if you ask me, the feeling I get when driving is so much, you know I understand it just as I am. I'm not a professional racing driver or anything, yes, I really enjoy driving it.

The changes, uh, the positions are different, I really like it, okay, cool, are you ready to take this out? Yes, let's do it, are you afraid? I trust you, I trust your life. Well, that makes one of us okay driving the F50. This is a review around the time of Cobid. We both wear masks, but that's the safe way to do it. The first thing you notice when you drive this car. I am stunned. how easy the shifter and clutch is, you know, it's funny because this is a 95 and I think from that era I think of the 512 tr, which is a very difficult car to drive, very heavy clutch, shifter situation very difficult, this car is not like that at all the clutch is light and easy the shifter is easy it's actually a pleasure to shift it now it's pretty tight here for my taller guy my knees are right up against the dash that curves towards down not exactly the most comfortable and the pedals are offset so it's a bit tight in the pedal box, especially for more modern cars, it's something I'm used to seeing on older Ferraris like the Boxer. the seat too It's tight, but a lot of cars are and it's not that bad, it's totally acceptable, the sound, while really impressive, is not surprising considering the engine is derived from Formula One, but it is quite loud.

What really surprises me is how easy the car feels to drive, I can't believe it, I mean the steering is easy, it's not incredibly heavy, there's no power steering, it feels like the testerosa, the 512 tr, the Shifter, clutch, everything feels easy, have you ever driven it with the roof off? uh, I have, I have a driver, you're going to win the roof. It's great, it sounds great because you can hear the engine very well. You know, one of the interesting things about the F50, values ​​have only started to rise in the last few years. They were long ignored for years, but now they've fallen off the charts entirely.

The F40 is a nightmare in comparison, it's so rugged and so in this we have air conditioning running. He feels quite comfortable here, very comfortable. Okay, I'll give it some gas. We'll see. Wow, that sound is one of the great sounds. Wow, that's an incredible sound. I mean, that's what you get when you get it. a formula one engine, you know, in a car in a row it also feels very fast, I mean, obviously it's going to be fast, I think part of the feeling of speed is enhanced because the engine is right there, being low , makes it feel even faster, the core too. it feels very solid when you drive the f40, it has a bit of old school here you know, it gives it a kind of vibe, this is not like that, it feels like a really very well made man, look because the difference between the car being in neutral and being here is crazy, the amount of sound is just unreal, it definitely does not have the braking capacity, it seems that the Enzo and the light ones do, in that sense you can tell that it is older and obviously the interior is not.

It's not that there aren't screens here, that kind of thing, what a great car, although this is really one of my favorite shifters and shift actions that I've ever driven, and that's the Ferrari F50, this is one of the most amazing . Modern Ferrari models, frankly one of the most amazing modern supercars with its Formula One derived V12 engine, really low production numbers and incredibly distinctive styling, this car is rare, cool, special and can be yours for three millions of dollars if you do it. I can find one anyway, now it's time to give the f50 a doug score starting with the weekend and styling categories.

I like the way the f50 looks but not everyone does and it gets a 7 out of 10. 0 to 60 acceleration is 3.8 seconds and it gets an 8 out of 10. The handling is very precise and it gets a 9 out of 10. 10. The fun factor is huge. I am amazed at how enjoyable it is to drive and it scores a 10 out of 10. The cool factor is obvious, this is a tremendously exciting car and it scores a 10 out of 10 for an overall weekend score of 44 out of 50. Next up are the categories and everyday features, it basically lacks some things, but not many, and it gets a two out of ten for comfort.

Low, the ride is harsh and passenger space is small and it gets a two out of ten. The quality is good. The car is expensive to run, but that makes sense and as an F1 engine, the interior is quite nice and it gets a five out of ten for practicality. is basically non-existent and gets a value of one out of ten. It's hard. These will always hold their value, but I believe they have peaked in the $3+ million range. There probably won't be much shooting from here, but. So again, what do I know anyway? With that projection in mind, it gets a 6 out of 10 for a total weekend score of 16 out of 50.

Added to the excavated score is 60 out of 100, which puts it up here against the supercars and the best. Sports cars from this era score exactly the same as the F40, which is funny because a common criticism of the F50 at the time was that it didn't really improve on the F40, but as you can see, the F50 gets better every day. score, it is more usable and reasonable than the f40, although the f40 wins the weekend results because it is cruder, of course, I would love to have either one.