You won't believe the price of this Ferrari F40 sold 10 years ago: the biggest investment mistake of the decade?

The year is December 2025, when the Ferrari F40 now flirts with the dizzying heights of auction sales, an archive resurfaces and almost makes you dizzy... in reverse. In February 2014, during the Rétromobile show, a perfectly authenticated Ferrari F40, sold by Artcurial Motorcars, found a buyer for €644,872. Yes, you read that right. At the time, nobody cried scandal. Today, that price seems to belong to another era. A time when the F40 wasn't yet an automobile ingot traded in millions.

A Ferrari F40 like no other

The F40 sold in 2014 was not just any car. It was a 1991 Ferrari F40, chassis no. ZFFGJ34B000089889, delivered new to an Italian motorsport legend: Formula 1 driver and Le Mans 24 Hours winner Pierluigi Martini. Prior to its sale at Artcurial, this F40 lived the life of a connoisseur's car: in Monaco when it was delivered, then in the hands of two French owners, including a Boeing 747 captain with a passion for exceptional cars. Its maintenance was beyond reproach: recent major overhaul, stamped logbook, Ferrari Classiche certification, reasonable mileage (29,900 km)... an F40 in its prime, healthy, traceable, desirable. And yet, estimated at between €550,000 and €750,000, it sold for €644,872 (or 748,809 $, £567,335 and 116,760,524 yen).

2014: another planet for the supercar market

Let's mentally go back ten years. In 2014, the classic car market had never been shaken by the speculative fever it is today. The F40 was already mythical, but not yet sacralized as a financial artifact. At the time, Ferrari was still producing naturally-aspirated V8s, Porsche was selling 911s with manual gearboxes at "coherent" prices, and electrification wasn't haunting any motor shows. Ten years later, the same F40 could be sold... for over 3 million euros, without even being a "museum" example.

The F40 today: a multi-million-dollar object of speculation

To take the measure of the shock, let's look at what an F40 is really worth in 2025, with documented sales since 2023.

Year	Location	Version	Results
2023	London	Original F40	£1.96 million
2024	Monterey	F40 "Minty Forty" modified	$1.79 million
2025	Milan	Original F40	€2.81 million
2025	Knokke-Heist	Original F40	€2.64 million
2025	Monterey	Original F40	$3.80 million
2025	Monterey	F40 "ghost" (360 km)	$3.85 million
2025	Monterey	F40 LM by Michelotto	$11,005,000

And there's more to come: an F40 "Blue Ship and Alain Prost's ex-F40all now exceed 2.5 to 3 million. By 2025, another 1993 F40 LM by Michelotto exceeded $11 million at RM Sotheby's. A F40 "ghosta near-new car with only 360 km, was estimated at over 2.4 million. And to think that in 2014, a healthy, sourced, certified F40 was selling for barely more than today's well optioned new Ferrari.

In 2014, could we have anticipated such madness?

The F40 is much more than a supercar. It's the testament of one man: Enzo Ferrari. Presented in 1987 to celebrate Ferrari's 40th anniversary, the F40 epitomizes an era when engineering dictated style, and function took precedence over comfort. Composite chassis, explosive twin-turbo, stripped interior, hard-as-nails gearbox... the F40 never sought to please. It wanted to dominate. And dominate it did: a top speed of 324 km/h, a standing start in 21 seconds, raw Pininfarina aerodynamics, a limited production run made rare by the legend. It was all there.

So in 2014, could we have anticipated such madness? Probably not to this extent. Yes, Ferraris were already rising in value. Yes, the F40 was respected. But no one imagined such a market explosion, fueled by :

• the scarcity of analog supercars
• the end of pure combustion engines
• the financialization of the classic car market
• the global auction war between houses
• the new fascination with the 80s and 90s

Today, an F40 is no longer a passion purchase. It's an asset.

The biggest automotive investment mistake of the decade?

Whoever bought this F40 for €644,872 in 2014 didn't just make a bargain. He pulled off one of the biggest financial coups in recent classic car history. If he were to resell the same model today... The capital gain would probably exceed €2 million. We'd like to go back in time. But it's too late.