Tom Talks: The Definitive Ferrari F40 Buyers Guide - Tom Hartley Jnr

In this episode of Tom Talks we are going to film what I think will be a

definitive

guide

to a Ferrari F40. Now I'm not in the habit of educating many people for free, but I see so much garbage coming to the market. These days I feel that it is a good time to share knowledge and experience. The Ferrari f40 is a car that I grew up loving as a child and today I can boast of having bought and sold more copies than anyone else. of the planet I now see so many examples offered to me weekly.

I see so many cars coming to market through other dealerships and in my opinion they are not fit for sale, they are not cars that we would ever stock, so I hope that some of the tips I will give you today will help you buy the Correct car like any other collectible car. Historical provenance is vital for an F40. Every time I am offered an example, the first thing I ask the seller is to tell me about your car. How many? miles, how many owners did the car have? where was the car originally supplied? It still has its beautiful original non-slip leather bag with its owner's manuals.

Its spare keys. Does it have its original warranty service book? Now I attach great importance to it. and value in the original books to such an extent that I probably wouldn't buy an F40 if it didn't have its original service book and the only way I would make an exception is if it was one of the prototypes that was never born. with a service book or if there was a really valid excuse and you know the guy's house burned down and his books were there and those documents to prove that his house burned down, you know, I would want a reason that probably doesn't exist to be able to buy an F40.

It does not have its original service book. Service book documents. It has the factory seal. The original factory label showing the engine number. The chassis number. The first owner. The date it was delivered. the ignition key number the door key number the paint code signatures of the dealer's first stone supplier the dealer's salesperson supplier and factory and then more lifetime service stamps usefulness of the car now I realize and you must realize that not always a 40 has service, the service book will be stamped, but there may be cars out there and there are cars that in 2000 in 2001 the car could have shown ten thousand kilometers and it was serviced and then in 2014 it showed nine thousand kilometers and most of the time that is the reason why my service books are lost because you know many years ago today everything is on the computer, going back to the service of 20 years ago , you can't access that information today like you will be able to in another 20 years by just going to the Ferrari database and sometimes cars are serviced by specialty dealers, they won't be serviced by franchise dealers, so a service book for me.

My recommendation is not to buy an F40 without its original service book and then what history does it make? The car still has what it came with, so it's okay for you to tell me that it's a new three-owner car that was presented as new in Italy and has driven five thousand miles of kilometers, but do you have any documents that prove it? corroborate? I give it a lot of value. In this type of paperwork now not every car is going to have this amount of paperwork and these cars only had three thousand miles on them but you know it's nice to see something other than a registration document which is often used these days you know , many F4 T. that come to the market that they offer us and people go.

I really don't have much. You know, my dealer gave me a registration document and my bill of sale, but the cars are 32 years old, 30 years old, or 29 years old. they should have a lot more with them than that and then Ferrari classic a certification many F 40s these days are classics a certified classic and Ferrari themselves do a fantastic job you know this is not just a source of income for them but it is In fact it helped with the value of all their classic Ferraris because it gives the buyer so much peace of mind that the factory itself has stamped something that says it has its original body its original chassis its original engine its original gearbox the suspension is correct the brakes are correctly picked up the wheels are correct it is in the correct color it gives the buyer so much peace of mind I think Ferrari has been doing it for about 15 years and other manufacturers should have realized quicker so the certification is Very good the only one One comment I would make is that in modern Ferrari f40 supercars there are many hidden body numbers that I will share with you a little later and with the Ferraris themselves.

I would love to see them implement that as part of certifying an f40 to be able to prove it has its original body, so we need to look at the body numbers, every f40 has body numbers, not everyone knows that. I don't think many people know this, but the car. and it's very easy to inspect one of these cars if you really know what you're doing because the body panels are numbered and then if you know a little bit about the production of these cars, you'll hear the terminology of We know that an F40 has a lot.

Well, that's true of early production cars, but later in production, many customers have complained that the car they just bought for a hundred and forty thousand pounds looks like the pint where the body looks like a sack of potatoes and Ferrari then changed the way the cars will be produced, they put a gel coat under the paint, so here we have two cars, Satmar, we have three cars here, it stinks next door. each other and the three cars are absolutely original, absolutely original, but this car that we lean on doesn't have much fabric, doesn't have much fabric because it's a nine oh five six nine chassis that's later in production and was just built differently, so you know when you look at the cars, this car, for example, and the other car, the fabric is absolutely blinding, but then this car, you know, the paperwork looks much cooler, much cooler, now there are others . things that I look for in these cars when I inspect them, you know for things like the wheels, if they have the original Ferrari and the speed line edge, and you know, I've seen people who have tried to replicate this but they don't.

Peveril reproduce it the same way you do when the cars left the factory. I guess that comes down to a bit of knowledge of knowing what you're looking at. I always look at the strength of the roof and it is surprising every time a Ruth is repainted. I bet if you see 20 F 40s that have had their roof repainted in almost every paint job, you always paint the inside of these areas red, but they were actually left black from the factory. You know, the other things I look for are the interior. Inside the engine bay you have a small black stripe that simply deteriorates with heat over time.

You can see how original the car is by the deterioration. I refer to these cars to talk a little about the history of both cars. so this is chassis 905 69 and this is chassis eight six nine eight nine so this is an older car this is a car that was owned again until 2016 the first owner was a guy in the north of England still had one of the seven original right-hand drive Daytona Spiders have a 288 GTO or right-hand drive to simplify the cam. You already know the large collection of Ferraris and I spoke with him at some point.

I wanted to buy it after a while and it took me many years. which happens sometimes, but you know, we finally managed to buy it and the historical archive of this tolerance is nominal. You know, the accessible game reserved these cars, the factory sticker on the windshield showing the tire pressure and you know it's the same thing. in every f40, whether it was an American 40 where Clark was in the Middle East, the Far East or for the UK, they built 13 1315 F 40s, the American cars were different because they had horrible bumpers, we had different scenes, they are seat belts different.

And in fact, I believe that in the next few years American cars will look like European cars, the value of European cars will far exceed American cars, and more American

buyers

will trade in their car for a European model because this is the most pure the color of American cars. it had to be federalised, you had to comply with so many other laws and they just had to change so many things about them, this car is a car that has an incredible history, it's one of the 78, you, one of the 78 cars in the UK, It's a car I didn't know existed which is actually quite stimulating because sometimes you can get blasé and think you know where all the cars are and they are cars in our main market the UK the only 78 reais I bought sold many.

I came across those 78s and tried to buy a lot of the other cars, so I felt like I knew where most of them were and that this car was so important because it was delivered new to Sterling Moss. You know, it was very comforting to just come across and find it last year. My daughter and I went to see a new client. You show me his fabulous collection of Ferraris again, a GTO, an F40 and an F50, and Enzo to the Ferrari, just some cool cars and we were looking at the. history of all cars and then we started talking about this car and you know, its history is just fantastic.

There is in the historical archive a letter from Stirling Moss: Enzo Ferrari in 87 and he is requesting an Enzo car. answers him and gives him a car gives him an allowance Enzo unfortunately died shortly after Sister Ling kept in touch with the factory and was chasing the delivery of his new car and he was chasing it in 88 she was chasing it in 89 was chasing in 1990 there is a very funny letter in the historical archive in which he writes to the commercial director of Ferrari and complains and says: do you know where my car is, you promised me my car in '88 and '89, now it's 1990 and you know that a very good friend of mine, Nick Mason, already received two, one for himself and another member of the band.

Can I point out to you that I participated 13 times in a Ferrari, I won 11 races, the other two races, one of them? He was disqualified at Sebring while he was in the lead and the other was leading the GT class when the fan failed on the car and the mom then goes on to say that it's a shame that being one of your former racing drivers doesn't. having more accolades than being a pop star exclamation point and then what was even funnier is that the business director wrote back and said, you know, I'm sorry you're disappointed, can I point out that Nick Mason is not just one ? of our best customers, he is a valued friend of Ferrari and his interest in Ferraris has not increased at the same time that the value of our cars has increased.

Exclamation point and lo and behold, Sterling took delivery of the car in '91 and later in '91. he sold the car, so the business manager was suspicious for good reason and then sold the car to a gentleman called David Morrison, which was from Goldman Sachs, a currency trader who is well known at the top end of the auto industry. very well known, he had a racing team called Parabolica, he had something like four McLaren F1 27r chassis that were sold last year. He had the F1 LM, which now resides with Ralph Lauren. You know, he had some amazing cars and then he sold them. the car in 1995 to the gentleman who we bought it from in 2019 and that's what I call absolute provenance, you know, the kind of story that very few owners can base the entire life of the car on and you know you can base it because my niche so that's fantastic provenance now your own instincts when you're going through provenance you go over the history you're going through you're looking for the route in the car for the normal telltale signs you know I can show you Some things on cardboard cars nowadays, but it's always Impossible to teach experience.

You know, we've bought and seen more of these cars than anyone else and you get a feeling and an experience every time. You know, when I look, you know you can. tell if it is completely damaged and you will be able to tell if it is a good paint job these cars when built naked were not built to the same standard that Ferrari is made to today these cars were racing cars for the road consequently please read the payment to Sometimes they are painted in areas that should have black paint and black paint is painted in areas that should have red paint and that's what I want to see when I look around a car, if the car is too perfect then you can say that this car they did something to him. and it's not as pure as it should be.

I remember, I remember very well an incident about three years ago, it was coming up to Christmas, a few days before Christmas, and they offered me this that sounded like a fantastic example that I had done, you know? Somewhere between 11 or 1300 kilometers from new was a lot more than I wanted to pay for the car, I just thought how do you know how many times you can buy a 1100 or 1200 kilometers? 40 I had four or five owners since new, but that's just one car. That was changed, that didn't put me off too much and I had bought it from a franchise dealer in the UK about three years before and it was showing me emails where the franchise dealer said this car is as good as it is. pure, it is original and simplyI bit the bullet.

I felt that way even though I was buying it for business. I wasn't buying it for myself personally. I felt like it was that time of year, Christmas, and I thought, you know what? You just can't pay too much for something so unrepeatable in such a good car, so I said I'll buy it subject to inspection now as he had purchased the car just a few years earlier from a well known and well respected franchise. in the UK and I went to see it and I was there for about 15 minutes and I just said this car is not for me and then you know I had to justify why it wasn't for me because we don't get back to a deal if I shake hands to someone if it's right or wrong a reason why you know a deal It's done and I said look this car is not what you think it is and yeah he agreed he couldn't believe I pointed out some areas and the next day the Ferrari dealer called me and just said, Tom, do us a favor.

Yo, what's wrong with that car? We didn't know. Obviously we have to work it out with the client. And that was a great example of lack of knowledge. The Ferrari Dinah in the UK will be the first worldwide. They will be the first people to say that maybe they are their niche in the market, their experience is not necessarily in these cars, they don't see enough 288 GTOs, they don't see enough f40, f50 or ENSO, it's just that they have the experience nor do their salesmen last as long enough it's not me at the dealerships and then three years later there are other dealerships doing some of the girls or they weren't there when the cars were new they didn't grow up around the cars so you know their knowledge isn't fantastic and maybe this video today will definitely help you because now I show you something that I have not shared with others before because it is something that no one taught me and it is something that I had to discover for myself and I had to discover it for myself by being obsessed with these cars , you know, when we buy a car and we detail it to such a high level that we end up removing parts as well, you know we have to be very thorough and it's something that has continued.

It was very useful to me over the years when I am 40 years old and now I am going to share with you, not everything for free, so now it is on the body members on each f40 on the door hinges on the hinges of the doors the body number is stamped so this car even though I don't have my contact lenses it looks like its body is number three four oh now at this point I'm going to call our head detailer Jonathan Jonathan let's go under the hood you have a panel Jonathan, can we remove this? panel now, what a sigh, what a sigh, more fun than we need there, there is no eight thousand key, but if you also take a look, these are other things that I really look for in the suspension arm country code, now which is an original factory. stamp m15 now if it depends on the country it was built for, what market it was built for, if it is a European car, if it is the yes the car duck told me different, however when it is still there it tells me that the car has not had a drift the car, you know this has not been replaced, also look here if you see the factory paint, yellow paint in areas here.

I hope you can see this on camera, but you will see it in a very Italian way. three four Oh, so what do we know now? We now know that the front end of this car is completely original. It has the original country codes in one corner and the suspension in the other corner has the original country code on the suspension arm. In my experience, just because you know I've lived and breathed these cars forever. You know it right away. I can look here and I can see that this has not been damaged, it is totally original, this is the right color, the right finish, this is it. the factory marks, you know, it has its little container for tires, it's to mark the chassis number on the tub.

It is located here. On the front we have the two doors that have their body numbers and they coincide with the front that had both body numbers. suspension arms, I have your country code so we're good at this puzzle, then you get rid of some of this stuff, then you start the engine, which is very epic and then we know there's a body number that I want to show you. Actually, this before I show you the body number, if you take a look at the carbon fiber, you'll see the red paint that's painted on, you know, the carbon finish and that's all from the factory, that's where they're at. those days the way they sprayed it and that's what I like to see you'll see the same thing on this slide you'll see the red overspray and that's how they were finished this is the original exhaust they made a lot of f40s these days they've been replaced with a true B style exhaust that makes the car sound a thousand times better and I mean, for the purists, it has stock exhaust.

I wouldn't be discouraged if the car had an original exhaust, it's really nice to have the However, it has an original exhaust, so hopefully if you find out that cars have to have an exhaust, you have the original exhaust to access the body number on the rear bumper, you need to remove one of the rear fog lights now 90% at that time. It is on the left side. I've seen it on the right side before. I can't remember on this car where it is, so Jonathan, can you take the real left side off and we'll take a look at it?

You may also have noticed here, you'll see what I was talking about earlier about this red paint that you know, reds get painted in areas that shouldn't be and sometimes black gets stained in areas that shouldn't be and that's fantastic. . Look, that's original, yeah, in a very Marian Mario and Luigi way that you can visualize on the production line 30 years ago, they literally scraped it into three four zero, so the body number three four zero that we now know is on the rear bumper. it's the original factory engraving, we have body number three four zero on both doors and we have body number three four zero on the front, so we now know that the cars had never had any of those quarter panels replaced. bodywork.

I bought more body numbers, there are more body numbers on these cars, accessing them takes a lot more work. You know doing it in this video is not feasible right now and besides, if you were evaluating a car, I haven't inspected one, I can do that. I don't think any salad would be willing to have you disassemble their car, but I think the areas I've shown you today will be more than enough to figure out if it's a real car or a good car. You also have country on the rear suspension arms. clothes on both suspension arms, so you should definitely look for that in the rear and the front, look for the body numbers, the feel of the paint, just remember, don't get too obsessed depending on where the car in production.

The later cars didn't have the fabric so don't get too hung up on it, the rear bumpers on the two production cars you will see the inside of this where the carbon is visible on the later cars the rear bumpers were black. the same lake cars, so again, that's something else to keep in mind. You have here in the engine compartment. You can see that you have the hydraulic system for the adjustable suspension. This is a car for cats. Sometimes you see the Ferrari logo here. I've noticed on a Few F4 T people they have that painted red on the engine block, that's not how the cars came out of the factory, but to be fair, it's not really the end of the world, in many other areas throughout In the engine compartment you will see this factory yellow paint.

I've seen some clever Ferrari specialists who cater to specialists who try to replicate this to make it look original, but it never really looks the same as the original factory paint that has been aged again, which might be something that would be a little more difficult if I would have done that. I don't have the experience of looking at these cars to know what this should look like. I'm looking, let's take a look inside. The interior of these cars is quite basic. All their forties are the same. You literally get two red cloth seats. - quite nice gear change, nice steering wheel, a handbrake and not many other things I'm looking for, you know, in several examples the seats are recovered I like to see the original material one thing that is common in their 40s and happens to everyone is that the roof interior after time starts to sag, it's a simple fix, you can drop the headliner and just glue it back on, there's not much else to the interior, the other thing that's probably worth talking about is a question I understand.

I am often asked if I should buy a cat car, a non-cat car, and a fair no tuning car for me as a dealer you have someone who is basically buying these cars to resell them for what they are worth. What is the most valuable nothing in any of them? having a jack car, a non-jack car and tuning a jack, tuning an untuned jack, they're all worth about the same, you know, if you tested the engine of a non-jack car with a car nerd for cats, I know you may have some braces. more horsepower, but you and I won't be able to tell when we're driving.

I don't particularly like cars with sliding windows, the windows never seem to close right, they leak water, they don't look as good, there's a reason. Why did Ferrari stop sliding windows and not the wind-up option? You already know the adjustable suspension. I have had cases before where I had cars with non-adjustable suspension in stock and it is a law that we have a buyer and the buyer has speed. bumps in your road or on a steep road and these cars are very low and you literally can't get them up the road without an adjustable suspension, so I personally like adjustable suspension and the stories that some people tell about adjustable suspensions. likely to be problematic or expensive to repair is completely incorrect.

I've never had a car go wrong with adjustable suspension and if it did go wrong, they're pretty simple, they're not, they're not difficult or complex things. to rectify, so if I were a person who had a preference for me, Tom, I would probably buy a car with adjustable suspension, but you know either way there is no difference in value, let's recap, so what are we looking for, the provenance What should we have? If we can corroborate that provenance, then we will verify the body numbers because if we have the body numbers around the car, then we will know that it has its original panels, its country codes on the suspension arms again on all four corners, if it has the country. codes, that's great as you know these cars are a bit missing and you would be replacing something like that which shows originality.

They built 1,315 of these cars, you know, plus eight prototypes. Some people try and claim nine prototypes, which is incorrect, there were only eight. prototypes you should expect as a great example don't just go buy an f40 you're spending a lot of money whether you buy an average car with less than 35,000 kilometers seven owners that don't have a service book that doesn't have any history That cars are still expensive, so if you're not looking to junk the car to race it, if you're really looking to invest your money in something like that, you know a liquid collectible car, which is what an F40 is.

So I would always promote, support and support any of our customers so that only the best ones pay the extra money because of those 1315 cars, there are a limited number of them that are really great cars and as the year goes by, there are less. and less for the best and the best will always serve you better than the rest. Now I hope this buying

guide

was good for you and I look forward to receiving all your checks in the mail.