The Ferrari F40 is the undisputed high priest of the supercar cult. It is the red-blooded dream that keeps collectors awake at night, usually accompanied by an ever-inflating price tag that defies economic gravity. But while Maranello purists treat the F40 like a holy relic, some people, specifically those with a German passport, decided the “standard” 478 HP was merely a polite suggestion.
Enter chassis 84326. This isn’t your typical “concours queen” polished with a diaper. This is the Ferrari F40 “Competition Conversion” a machine that traded its Italian etiquette for some serious Teutonic muscle. Born in 1990, it was promptly handed over to Richard Hamann. Now, Hamann was a man who usually spent his days making BMWs look angry, but for the F40, he called in a heavyweight: Peter Sauber, that Sauber.
Together, they ditched the factory IHI turbos for KKK units, essentially giving the V8 a set of iron lungs, and cranked the boost until the car screamed out 700 HP. At the time, this conversion cost about 75% of the car’s original value.
The car actually saw the heat of battle in the 1996 BPR Global GT Series, though its racing career was more “participation trophy” than “podium sweep”, finishing 26th at Spa and DNF at the Nürburgring. After its brief stint as a B-list gladiator, it was left to rot in a British barn.
Thankfully, a three-year restoration by Moto Technique saved it from the rust gods. They even added a MoTeC system, allowing the driver to toggle between 550, 650, or a terrifying 720 HP.
On April 25, RM Sotheby’s will drop the hammer in Monte Carlo. Experts expect a price between $2.4 and $3 million. It’s not a “pure” Michelotto-built LM, but in a world of cookie-cutter collections, this Hamann-Sauber F40 is loud, controversial, and gloriously fast.
