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If you read new car magazines you cannot have failed to notice the latest hyper sports car grudge match featured on every cover: Porsche 911 GT2 versus Ferrari 430 Scuderia. And long has this battle for ultimate road car performance been raging.

Prancing horse gees up

It all began in 1983, when Porsche topped Ferrari’s beautiful 288GTO with its technological meisterstück, the Gruppe B, soon to become known as the 959. Enzo Ferrari was smarting from the trumping meted out by the men in white coats from Stuttgart. He had to ignominiously pull the GTO from any racing programme because he knew it could not beat the Group B contender. A change in the Group B rules helped – but his GTO was effectively bested in the engineering shop without even venturing onto a circuit.

In 1987 Enzo Ferrari celebrated his 40th anniversary at the helm of his eponymous sports car operation by launching the F40, a racing car destined for… the road. Here was a limited-production flagship Ferrari to take the fight to Porsche and win. With a claimed top speed of 201mph and a 0-60mph time of 3.7 seconds, Ferrari grabbed the Fastest Car in the World crown. But, most importantly, it was faster than the 197mph 959. On paper…

Initially Ferrari planned to limit F40 production to just 400. This was then increased to 1000 and final production ran to 1315 examples by 1992. When sales began in the UK the F40’s list price was £193,000, but cars immediately cars changed hands for up to half a million and Nigel Mansell sold his for £800,000, making him as good a car dealer as he was a racing driver. Good F40s command £200,000 today.

Porsche goes hi-tech

First seen at the Frankfurt Motor Show in 1983, the Porsche 959 went on sale in 1987, with a limited run of 200 examples. Demand was high so a total of 268 was manufactured, including the racing and test cars. Far fewer than the F40, then. The 959 cost £145,000, speculators drove the price to more than double that and now a good example is worth £150,000.

By late-’80s standards the Porsche 959 was an incredibly advanced and complicated machine. It is reputed that Porsche sold them for half of their actual cost as showcases for its engineering prowess. And it worked: the 959 was a well-proven competition machine, dominating the 1986 Paris-Dakar Rally by finishing in first and second places, with the heavily laden back-up car coming home fifth. In the same year a 959 finished seventh overall at Le Mans, headed only by Group C Porsches. An incredible result.

In the meantime Ferrari constructed its (relatively) mechanically simple F40 racing car for the road, but never went racing. A couple of privateers campaigned F40s in the IMSA Series at Laguna Seca and the BRP Global GT Series in Europe. In LM guise they were beaten by the McLaren F1 GTR at Le Mans.

Today, as modern classics, why is it that the more numerous Ferrari F40 road car commands a hefty premium over the rarer, more sophisticated, race-proven Porsche 959? As our American friends are wont to say, ‘Go figure’.
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Driving the F40

But let’s leave that aside for a mo’ and go and drive these two examples, warmed and ready for action on the shoreline of Lake Geneva. Our man in Switzerland, Simon Kidston, procured this immaculate 1990 Ferrari F40 Berlinetta, a rare early example with pre-catalyst exhaust and non-adjustable suspension, and just 11,250 miles showing on the clock. I personally am not much taken with the F40’s Pininfarina-styled looks, but there is no denying it has a pugnacious presence.

With that sharply drooping snout and high rear wing it does look like a road-racer, and a quick one. The 2936cc V8 engine, an evolution of the previous 288GTO mill, with the help of two Japanese water-cooled IHI turbochargers, promises 478bhp at 7000rpm. And most of this forced induction plumbing is visible through the rear plastic engine cover. Very boy racer.

Open the flimsy carbonfibre door and the F40’s interior looks like that of a kit car: simple to the point of appearing homemade. The requisite Momo steering wheel is in place, there is a set of very red racing seats, the exposed Ferrari gearshift gate, a sprinkling of instruments and that’s it. No carpet, no door trim, no weight. And that’s where this Ferrari is a bit special – in the construction of its body and chassis.

Using F1 composite technology of the day, the F40 features a tubular steel spaceframe chassis with bonded-on panels of Kevlar, imparting torsional stiffness without weight. The doors, bonnet, bootlid and other removal panels are all carbonfibre. The result is an all-up weight of just 1100kg, about the same as the notably light Porsche 911 2.7RS Touring of the early 1970s.

Once clambered over the wide sill and cupped into the figure-hugging seat, you clack the door behind you. The Momo is set high and at quite a flat angle. The bare, black composite floor is shiny underfoot and gaps are sealed with what looks like green mastic. The pedals are naked metal and the dash is covered in cheap-looking carpeting, but the instruments are right in your line of vision, with the tacho redline marked at 7750rpm, and the long gearshift perfectly placed.

Check for neutral, turn the key and punch the starter button. The V8 behind you fires without much drama. It initially runs a bit unevenly but dab the throttle and it revs cleanly. Having a flat-plane crank arrangement, it sounds like two eager four-cylinders rather than whoofling lazily like an American V8.
Depress the clutch – ouch, it is heavy – and pull the stiff gearlever back and down towards you for first. You would think that this Ferrari might choose to stall in true race-car style but no, just engage the clutch, add some throttle and the ample quotient of 425lb ft of torque eases the light F40 away.

Trundling through the centre of busy Geneva, the Ferrari is tractable and remains largely calm and docile. The clutch and gearshift are both heavy and you cannot see much behind you, but the steering is alive and sharp and the car seems to swivel from your hips. The untrimmed interior sounds just like a racing car: engine and suspension noise crash through the cabin, while every piece of grit thrown up from the road can be heard hitting the composite tub. Tyre noise rises markedly as we head out onto the motorway leading to the mountains.

Kidston and snapper Bailie in the photo car ahead wave me past as the motorway clears, so I drop a gear and depress the throttle. The Ferrari’s engine spools up and the rev-counter breaches 4000rpm. In a flash it is at 5000rpm and then in the next instant at the seven-and-three-quarters redline. Whilst not quite an on/off switch, the twin-turbo V8 gathers speed at a terrifying rate after about five thou’.
Lifting the throttle to go for the next gear, there is an explosive phzzzooooo! noise from behind my right ear, loud enough to make me almost jump clean out of the seat.

Thank goodness for the racing harness. My first thought is that something must have blown in the engine bay but then it strikes me: must be the turbo pop-off valve. With my heart rate slowly coming down from about 170bpm, I give the F40 another squirt and change up through the ’box, enjoying the accompaniment of the pop-off with each cog swapped.

This Ferrari is frighteningly fast. Your need to recalibrate your brain to absorb information at the speed the Ferrari requires. The rise of revs, the concentration required for the recalcitrant gearshift, the way speed piles onto the speedometer, the way the motorway narrows and other cars come back at you as you fly past. Then the need to process the fast-shrinking distances screaming towards you through the large windscreen. After driving normal historic cars, this is like a computer game – a very hot and noisy one.

Settling in and becoming more comfortable with the Ferrari, you notice that the firm ride is acceptable on the smooth Swiss motorway and the car always feels securely planted. Peeling off and into the mountain roads, the Ferrari attacks a steep climb with gusto. Twirling it through the corners it shoots to the next bend, where you can throw it in, quickly. The well-sorted suspension keeps it flat at all times and on these dry roads grip is no problem, with massive 335-section Pirelli P7s at the rear. But the brakes begin to prove a bit of a challenge, needing a firm shove and not biting with much conviction. As you climb higher up the mountain, the road gets tighter and the Ferrari begins to feel a tad wide. Also, the corners come up more quickly so you have to be careful to judge when the turbos cut in, trying to get them on-boost on the way out and not boosting when going in. Damn hard work but enormous driving fun.

The F40 is basically a large go-kart. It has that typical Ferrari nervousness, feeling tightly wound and super responsive. As well as the less than co-operative gearbox, the throttle pedal is awkward, being sticky when you drive slowly. It much prefers to be down more than half its travel, where all hell breaks loose.

Clambering out of the now very hot Ferrari atop a mountain, I am perspiring and shaking a little. What a car. What an adrenalin pump! This is a supercar of the late ’80s but it feels like a classic of the ’60s. Much faster and more effective, of course, but providing that pure driver feel, unsullied by power assistance, servo assistance, rubber bushing, sound deadening, suspension compliance and all that boring stuff. Fortunately Kidston has arranged a luncheon at his favourite restaurant stop so I have a chance to calm down.
Ferrari F40