OUT OF THE SHADOWS

As the Ferrari F50 hits a significant anniversary, James Elliott pits the Fanny Mendelssohn of motoring against its Felix

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The Ferrari F50 is 30. Yet even today it is apparently impossible to judge it other than in the context of the F40. For this story we started planning with only the F50 in mind and then garnished it with an F40 - mainly because we could, but also because it just felt natural. So, as the F40 elbows its way to the table and blows out the candles on the F50's birthday cake, yet again, I too plead guilty to smothering the F50's long-sought right to independence. This state of affairs feels pretty unfair on the F50 (every Jaguar XJ-S nods sagely in sympathy), but does anything better illustrate its neglected place in the classic firmament?

To understand how we got here, we must first understand the car and the circumstances that cast such a huge and dense shadow. Launched in the midst of the 1980s supercar arms race, Pininfarina's set-square F40 - named for the 40th anniversary of the Maranello company and famously il Commendatore's last car - was peak analogue. It was a statement of intent, a declaration of war. No nostalgic V12 resonance or discretion; instead, it followed the format of the preceding, considerably more trad-Ferrari-looking 288 GTO, with a whopping 2.9-litre V8 boosted by a pair of IHI turbos from Japan.

Maranello had created a monster. With a declared top speed of 201mph, and a price tag just shy of £1000 for each of those mph, Ferrari ended up quadrupling the original intended production of 300-odd cars and, when the F40's five-year lifespan came to an end, some 1311 had been manufactured. All in red with red interior, all left-hand-drive bar six Middle East special orders.