Ferrari F50 GT

This beautiful dream machine was to be Ferrari’s contender in the FIA GT Chamopionship. But like most dreams it never came true. The project was aborted and the Ferrari F50 GT will probably never be seen on a race track.

The car was supposed to be Ferrari’s answer to the McLaren F1 GTR and its strong preformances in the BPR series. The project was already in an advanced stage, two cars had been built, when the plug was pulled. What happened? Ferrari had simply been scared away by the extraordinary preformances of the Porsche 911 GT1. How this red devil would have preformed in the 1997 FIA GT Championship, against McLaren, Porsche and Mercedes will never be known.

But Nicola Larrini, Ferrari’s F1 test driver at that time, who actually drove the F50 GT, says it had a great deal of potential. In a recent interview in Autosport he said that the car was "very good".

Looking at the Ferrari’s preformance on paper, it certainly lookes good and promising. With a V12 engine based on its 1993 F1 engine and a chassis constructed by Dallara it seems very good indeed. The chassis was all carbon and the engine was reputed to rev as high as 11 000 rpm(!). Compare that with its GT predecessor the F40 LM’s 5000 rpm, and you get the picture. The F40 which already gave the short tailed McLaren a run for its money in the BPR in 1996. One has to wonder if Ferrari didn’t overestimate the 1997 Porsche.

The three produced Ferrari F50 GT cars were sold to collectors for around the $1million mark and will never race. S/N 001 went to Art Zafiropoulo, a California collector. S/N 002 to Yoshikuni Okamoto, a Japanese collector, and S/N 003 to Jim Spiro in Louisiana and later to an Australian collector for $1,430,000.

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