Lewis Hamilton has finally got his Ferrari F40, and considering this is a man who has spent his life driving some of the fastest machinery ever built, that is saying something. The seven-time Formula 1 world champion has revealed that he has tracked down his “very own F40”, a car he says he has dreamed about owning since childhood. And this was not simply a case of walking into a Ferrari showroom, signing a cheque and driving away. Hamilton’s Ferrari F40 had spent more than three decades sitting in a garage, covered in dust, before he brought the forgotten supercar back into his extraordinary car collection.
For Hamilton, the significance of the car goes far beyond its badge. “This is the car of my dreams,” he said, recalling how he dreamed of owning an F40 as a child. His connection with Ferrari only made the moment more significant. When he joined Scuderia Ferrari, Hamilton made sure that an F40 was waiting for him on his first day at Maranello. That tells you rather a lot about where this particular Ferrari sits in his hierarchy of dream cars.
And then there is the F40 itself. Launched in 1987 to celebrate Ferrari’s 40th anniversary, the Ferrari F40 was conceived as the final road car overseen by Enzo Ferrari himself. It was not designed to be comfortable, practical or particularly forgiving. It was built to be fast, light and gloriously uncompromising. At a time when supercars were becoming increasingly sophisticated, Ferrari went in the opposite direction, creating a machine that felt almost like a road legal racing car.
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Its shape remains one of the most recognisable in automotive history. Designed by Pininfarina, the F40 featured an enormous rear wing, sharp aerodynamic surfaces, a low nose and a body constructed using lightweight materials including Kevlar and carbon fibre. Beneath that dramatic bodywork sat a 2.9-litre twin-turbocharged V8 producing around 478PS and 577Nm of torque. Power was sent to the rear wheels through a five-speed manual gearbox, while the car weighed roughly 1,100kg in its original specification.
The result was extraordinary for its era. The F40 could accelerate from 0 to 100km/h in around 4.1 seconds and reach a top speed of more than 320km/h, making it the first production Ferrari capable of exceeding 200mph. But numbers only tell part of the story. The F40 became legendary because of how it delivered those numbers. There was little insulation between driver and machine, no elaborate electronic safety net and none of the modern supercar conveniences we now take for granted. It was raw, loud and intimidating in precisely the way a Ferrari halo car should be.
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That makes Hamilton’s example particularly fascinating. Rather than discovering a pristine collector piece sitting beneath showroom lights, he found the car after it had been left in a garage for more than 30 years. Covered in dust and effectively frozen in time, it needed serious mechanical attention before it could return to the road. Hamilton chose to bring the car first to Maranello, where Ferrari’s engineers and mechanics spent weeks restoring it and bringing the dormant machine back to life. For a car this important, that is arguably the only fitting place for its revival.
The F40 now joins one of the most enviable celebrity car collections in the world. Hamilton has long been known for his taste in rare and exotic machinery, but this particular addition feels different. It is not simply another Ferrari supercar or another expensive trophy. It is a childhood dream finally realised. nd for once, the cliché seems entirely appropriate. Some cars are bought. Others are collected. The Ferrari F40, particularly one that has spent three decades waiting for its second life, is something you inherit into your story. For Lewis Hamilton, that story has finally come full circle.
