MBWorld.org Forums - F40 v THE Clock...

After an exhaustive (and fun) search for an F40. The 'right car' presents itself. Red/red (they all are), books, tools and records........... perfect! And it is an F40! How bad could it be? :D

The original owner had traded it in on a hot rod from Boyd Coddington. I can appreciate hot rods, but trade your F40 in on one? Someone's loss...... someone's gain! The deal is done, and now how to get it home. We could call Reliable and do the enclosed carrier, but it's only in the OC (Orange County), and it has to go to Phoenix. Time for a road trip!

My long time 'partner in crime' in this kind of silliness and I fly out to California and catch a cab over to Coddington's place. We arrive and amongst all the chromed out '32 Fords and resto-mods, sits a bright red F40! I think my heart skipped a beat in anticipation of the sprint ahead.

With paper work done, its time to get going. 2:10pm, and we are off! As I leave the shop, we cross some rail road tracks and I decide to see what all this 'F40 worship' is about, so I wind the revs up. There is nothing quite like the first time you experience the boost building in an F40. You can feel it building at 2000 rpm and then by 3K it hits you like a hammer in the chest, taking your breath away as it launches itself towards the horizon. It's not as big a hammer as the March/Cosworth Indycar, but this is a road car/ Albeit, a thinly disguised race car for the road. But a road car nonetheless, and you just don't expect it.

Traffic is amazingly light for Los Angeles and we start increasing the pace...... and increasing the pace, and then increasing the pace some more. By the time we are free of the strangle hold of the city and find the open road, we find a pattern of passing traffic at a moderate pace (waving to the fans), and then drop the hammer in the gaps. Traffic is very light, as are the CHP and AZ DPS, and there are lots of gaps. This is turning out to be a great day.

F40's have no radio, but who needs one. The turbo sound track supplied by Ferrari, consists of whooshing, waste gate releases, with Ferrari's trade mark whine, along with a gutteral aggression at low revs, underscoring it all..... who needs a radio? As we drive, the discussion consists mainly about all the great sounds...... and that thrust! It hits you in the chest and then the pit of your stomach and God, is it addictive! On this trip we coined an expression, "GIVE ME BOOST"!, each time an empty strip of tarmac appeared. And boost is what it gives best, as well as 2 black strips of Perelli's, in just about any gear!

We stop to feed the F40, and us in Blythe, CA. And if you have never been to Blythe..... it's about as dismal as the name suggests. With us all fueled up, we're off again.

With little traffic and no police escort, we fall into a very good rhythm, with my buddy scanning as far as he can down the road for black and whites. He never needs to look back, because there ain't anything gonna be catching us on this road, on this day. So, periodically he scans the skies for fighter escorts!

We plan on going straight to California Pizza Kitchen, which is right, smack in the middle of Phoenix at 24th and Camelback. By now, the F40 and I have developed a huge friendship, and I can feel whatever she is doing through the seat of my pants, as well as through that amazing steering. It just might be love!

Off the freeway we go and into the parking lot and we let the car idle for several minutes to cool down those turbos. As it's idling, a crowd starts to appear. We both glance down at our watches. It's 5:30. At the same time we both do a quick calculation. Look at each other and exclaim, "Was that 3 hours and 20 minutes"? Our watches were correct, it was!

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