\u201cThere are cars that you admire, and then there are cars that make you feel something.\u201d For Lewis Hamilton, that car has always been the Ferrari F40. Long before the seven Formula 1 championships and his arrival at Ferrari, it represented the sound, history and emotion of the brand he dreamed of driving for as a child.<\/p>\n
The car that ultimately became his own is a 1991 Ferrari F40 with an extraordinary past. According to Azimut Automobile Heritage Enhancement, the investment fund that located it in late 2025, the car was placed inside a private garage only days after its original delivery and remained there for approximately 35 years. It still showed delivery mileage and had never been dismantled, modified or restored. Not a single screw had reportedly been turned.<\/p>\n
Lewis Hamilton drives his dream Ferrari F40 through Maranello as fans stop and stare<\/p>\n
Ferrari brings Lewis Hamilton\u2019s forgotten F40 back to life<\/p>\n
When Hamilton reported for his first official day at Maranello in January 2025, he made sure an F40 was waiting beside him for the photograph that introduced his Ferrari era.<\/p>\n
Months later, he revealed that he had sold his entire multimillion-dollar car collection because he was more interested in art. Still, he named one exception: the F40, which he considered a work of art itself.<\/p>\n
Azimut AHE acquired the remarkably preserved car before it eventually became Hamilton\u2019s. Despite the decades of dust, dirt and dead insects collected across its body and grille, unusually favorable storage conditions had protected its original red paint and appearance.<\/p>\n
Hamilton then sent the F40 back to Maranello, where Ferrari\u2019s engineers and mechanics removed major components, including the engine, and worked for weeks to return it safely to running condition while preserving the originality that made it so exceptional.<\/p>\n
The finished car has now been seen on the streets of Maranello with Hamilton behind the wheel. As he carefully moves along a narrow two-way road, a motorcyclist pulls alongside and offers a quick greeting.<\/p>\n
Lewis responds before continuing through traffic, while people begin recognizing him, raising their phones and stopping to admire the spectacular red Ferrari. He cannot explore its enormous speed there, but the unmistakable shape and sound of the F40 are enough to command everyone\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n
Introduced in 1987 to celebrate Ferrari\u2019s 40th anniversary, the F40 became the final road car approved during Enzo Ferrari\u2019s lifetime.<\/p>\n
Its 2.9-liter twin-turbocharged V8 produces 478 horsepower through a five-speed manual transmission, with a claimed top speed of 201 mph.<\/p>\n
It has no power steering, ABS or traction control to separate the driver from the machine. But after spending almost its entire existence standing still, its most impressive achievement may simply be moving again with the man who dreamed about it as a child finally holding the steering wheel. \u201cSome cars you just don\u2019t forget,\u201d Hamilton said. \u201cAnd this one\u2019s mine.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThere are cars that you admire, and then there are cars that make you feel something.\u201d For Lewis…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":880162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":["post-880161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=880161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/880162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=880161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=880161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=880161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}