I don’t usually find myself feeling sorry for supercar owners often. Usually, all I know of those types is them posting photos on the internet of them living some cartoonishly-lavish lifestyle. I’m not hating; I’m just saying hardship isn’t usually associated with folks in this particular tax bracket. However, this poor fella in Australia had a brutal run-in with some nasty luck the last day before he would turn over ownership of his recently-uninsured Ferrari F40. 

Man loses $1.5 Million Ferrari F40 in a flash

According to The Drive, the world is one more Ferrari F40 shorter after this fateful day in July of 2020. The tragic story has taken on a few iterations since it happened. In Queensland, Australia, the local news initially reported that the car was totaled, or in the local vernacular, “stuffed” while on a test drive due to the dealer plates on the multi-million-dollar supercar. 

Upon further investigation, it turns out that the owner of the massively-expensive Ferrari had taken it out for one last spin before he was set to sell the following day. People might be thinking, “why would you not have a million-dollar car insured?” Seeing as he was meant to sell it the next day, it would make sense that he would have canceled his insurance. Either way, taking it out might be understandable, but it was also clearly stupid. 

To add to the stupidity, the car had not been driven in five years before this last outing. First of all, car tires require care to stay safe while sitting that long. Second of all, a Ferrari F40 is no Camry. This is not a car that just anyone can hop in and drive. They are mid-engined supercars that aren’t very forgiving in the first place, much less with hard old tires. 

What exactly happened? 

The Ferrari was likely moving a pretty good clip to manage the damage it inflicted on the crash site’s surrounding area. The Drive mentions that the red pony car took out two separate sets of traffic lights, multiple street signs, and trees until finally coming to rest deep in a hole in the dirt it dug for itself. It’s not hard to see why the assumption is that this car was doing far more than the posted speed limit. I mean, it’s an F40, after all. Thankfully the driver (owner) and passenger both walked away without serious injury. 

What makes the Ferrari F40 so valuable? 

The Ferrari F40 is significant for a myriad of reasons. Many of these reasons are the sheer performance aspects of this little red wedge, but some are more of the collectible intangibles. One of those is that the F40 launched in 1987 to celebrate Ferrari’s 40th anniversary, and it happened to be the last car launched by Enzo Ferarri himself. It turns out that people care about things like that. 

More importantly, anyone with a pulse will find that it goes up a bit when they see this ultimate poster car. Not to mention it is still fast by today’s standards, but back then, it was mind-bending-ly fast. The F40 has a 2.9-liter twin-turbocharged V8 making a screaming 471 hp and 426 ft-lbs of torque. That makes for a 0-60-mph time of 4.2 seconds. 

The F40 is also exceedingly rare in that Ferrari only ever made 400 examples. In 1987 the price for a brand-new one was $400,000 (which in today’s money equals around $900,000.) It stands to reason that with its cutting edge performance, limited production, and cultural significance, that these cars’ value has stretched into the multi-millions today. 

RIP to that Australian F40. We will remember you.