The only Ferrari F40 with an automated transmission was made for the president of Fiat

Of the approximately 1,300 units of the Ferrari F40 produced between 1987 and 1992, only one left Maranello without a clutch pedal. Named F40 Valeo, with a ZFFGJ34B000079883 chassis, it was ordered in 1989 by Gianni Agnelli (former Fiat boss) and sold at auction in 2008 for € 418 thousand — about R$ 1.1 million at the exchange rate at the time, or R$ 2.5 million at today’s conversion. The detail is that, since then, the market has changed levels: the current record for an F40 is US$ 8.3 million, equivalent to R$ 43 million, paid for a 1991 example auctioned in Monterey.

The adaptation was not a whim. Agnelli, president of the Fiat Group from 1966 to 1996, suffered from an injury to his left leg caused by a car accident and had difficulty activating the clutch. As the group had controlled half of Ferrari since the late 1960s, the request arrived in Maranello with weight – and Enzo Ferrari, who died in August 1988, was no longer there to veto it. The factory turned to the French Valeo to adapt the five-speed manual transmission.

Automated, not automatic

Seen from the inside, the F40 Valeo looks the same as the others: the lever is the same, with the gears on the metal grille. The difference is below. The clutch started to be electronically activated by a central that engaged and disengaged in less than 100 milliseconds, without driver intervention. The system also prevented the selection of very high or very low gears and locked the start outside the proper conditions.

Other than that, the car is a standard F40. The 2.9-liter twin-turbo V8 mounted longitudinally behind the driver delivers 478 hp and 58,8 kgfm, in a 1,100 kg body. The conventional version reached 323 km/h and went from 0 to 100 km/h in 4,4 seconds; the Valeo was marginally heavier, and Ferrari never released its own numbers for it. As an aesthetic distinction, it gained black interior lining instead of the standard red, aluminum lever and cigarette lighter.

Three owners and 600 km driven

Custom-made, the car was almost not used. When the second owner bought it at a dealership in Turin, the odometer read just over 600 km. The F40 Valeo had only three owners: Agnelli, this buyer from Turin and the winner of the 2008 auction, who continues to have the car.

The partnership between Agnelli and Valeo was older. Years before the F40, he had already ordered a Testarossa with a similar solution, and it was Ferrari’s satisfaction with that project that led the factory to repeat the dose. The F40 Valeo became a cult object even on a reduced scale: the Italian BBR Models launched this year a 1:18 miniature of the car, limited to 60 units, at € 426.39 — something around R$ 2.520.

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