Ferrari F40 Valuation Premium Centers on Original Paint and Factory Verification

Laurence Edmondson Sep 3, 2026, 01:10 PM ET Close • Joined ESPN in 2009 • An FIA accredited F1 journalist since 2011 "Original paint, 69 kilometres on the clock, passenger door never opened." It's the dream listing for anyone in the market for a Ferrari F40 and all three details were among those that convinced Lewis Hamilton to open his chequebook and buy his dream car. The seven-time champion revealed last year that he had sold off the vast majority of his car collection, saying at the time he was "more into art." But he still hankered after a pristine F40 -- a car that he, along with millions of other car enthusiasts around the world, considers art in its own right. Roughly 1,315 F40s were built between 1987 and 1992, making low-mileage examples rare in 2026. Two weeks ago, a U.S. market model (distinguishable by black plastic trim on its front bumper) sold at auction for $8.4M with just 320 miles on the clock. Although Hamilton did not disclose the price he paid, with just 69 kilometres (43 miles) on the clock, it's possible his European market car (arguably the more desirable of the two) could have been in the same ballpark. One feature that is coveted among collectors of all variants of F40 is the original paintwork. To save weight, the car's original paint was applied so thinly over the bodywork that the weave of the Kevlar and carbonfibre underneath is visible under the

Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari Team Principal Frédéric Vasseur celebrate a P2 finish in parc fermé at the 2026 Monaco Grand Prix. Bryn Lennon - Formula 1 via Getty Images MONZA, Italy — Ferrari Formula 1 team principal Fred Vasseur can’t recall the exact year that he first visited the Autodromo Nazionale Monza in northern Italy, but it was some point in the early 1990s. Back then, Vasseur was an engineer in his mid-20s, with dreams of one day working in F1. But his first visit to Monza was for the Gran Premio della Lotteria, a now-defunct Formula 3 race that used to be a staple of the European junior racing calendar. And Vasseur does remember the fond feeling Monza, known as La Pista Magica or the ‘Temple of Speed,’ instilled in him. This only grew as visits to the track — home of the Italian Grand Prix — became an annual affair, initially running his ART Grand Prix team in junior series, then in F1 as a team principal – first with Renault and then Alfa Romeo. But it was when Vasseur first went to Monza as Ferrari’s F1 boss in 2023 that he experienced the full spectrum of emotion and understood the meaning of this track and this race to Italian fans. “You can feel it only when you are at Ferrari,” Vasseur told The Athletic in an interview. “It’s something special.” The Italian GP is Ferrari’s annual homecoming. A chance for its passionate, loyal fanbase, the tifosi, to turn the gra

Lewis Hamilton arrived at Formula 1’s Italian Grand Prix in his own Ferrari F40 ahead of a weekend in which expectations have been raised for the fabled home team. Hamilton recently purchased an F40—“a dream car of mine”—and drove it into the circuit on Thursday morning, while he himself was adorned in stylish attire. Hamilton explained that he has been “looking for one for a while” and “wanted one with low mileage” as well as “one with a story,” and found the ideal version. “I wanted to find the most authentic one and managed to come across this one that the owner had bought it, drove it from Maranello to his home, 69 kilometers, and then parked it and never started it again,” Hamilton said. “The passenger door had never been opened, you know. It just had this cover on it and all this dust. Then the decision was kind of, “What do you do? Do you keep it as an art piece, keep it all dusty, or do you have them clean it up?” So that took me a while to decide, and then I had them redo it because I wanted to drive it. “I realized, actually, what’s kind of crazy is—I might be wrong—but I’m pretty sure none of the Ferrari drivers in history have ever arrived in the coolest cars that they have, you know, these iconic ones, the GTO or the F40. And I was like, ‘It has to be done.’” Hamilton also stumbled upon a symbolic coincidence during the revival process. “What was also crazy is when