The Ferrari F50 Is a $3 Million Supercar Icon

this is a 1995 Ferrari f50 and it is quite simply one of the greatest modern Ferraris Ferrari says they built only 350 of these for the entire planet and this is one of them it was Ferraris flagship supercar of the 1990s it's also worth over three million dollars as this is one of the most sought-after modern Ferraris and today I'm going to review it before I get started be sure to check out cars and bids which is my new online car enthusiasts auction website that has cool cars from the modern era if you're looking to sell or buy a cool modern car go to cars and bids.com we have an amazing selection of cars auctioned live right now that you can go bid on check out cars and bids cars and bids.com I've borrowed this f50 from David Lee who's a well known Ferrari and car collector here in Southern California you can follow david on instagram the name that you see on the screen and you should follow him because he has this car and the f40 a in the Enzo am the la ferrari and a lot of other amazing cars too I'm going to be talking to David a little bit later about this car and some of the rest of his collection so let's talk at 50 as you probably know Ferrari has five modern supercars that command tremendous interest and desirability among collectors there's the 288 GTO the f40 the f50 the Enzo and a lot Ferrari the f50 is the second rarest of the bunch with only 350 units made according to Ferrari which makes it an especially difficult acquisition for collectors looking to assemble the entire set and that's one reason why values of these had skyrocketed in recent years these days a nice f50 can cost three million dollars or more of course there's also the engine this car has a v12 but not just any v12 its engine was literally derived from the Ferrari Formula One racecar making this the very last road car to have a formula one derived engine it makes about 510 horsepower and about 350 pound feet of torque and it sends this car from zero to 60 in 3.8 seconds on its way to a top speed of just over 200 miles an hour and then there's the styling the f50 has always been a bit controversial although I've always loved it it doesn't have the classic wedge shape like the f40 it was also the only way you could get an open roof Ferrari supercar until the ultra rare laferrari aperto still the f50 has always been kind of the forgotten ferrari supercar always in the shadow of the more loved and more remembered f40 at least until recent years when collectors have focused their interest on this car and values have started to shoot up and today I'm going to review it first I'm gonna take you on a tour of the f50 and I'm gonna show you all of the quirks and features of one of the most desirable amazing special and valuable modern Ferraris then I'm going to get it out on the road and drive it I'm terrified and then I'll give it a dug score alright I'm gonna start the quirks and features of the f50 by opening it up and that means starting with the key which has an unusual trait namely it can fold you can see right here it's a key and then you can fold it so that it's a key at a 90 degree angle apparently they did this to make it easier to fold it up so you could store it somewhere but it only folds to 90 degrees it doesn't fold up completely like most folding keys so the key part is always gonna be sticking out even when it's folded it was a very curious thing for I did on all of its models from this time period now as for actually opening the door there's a fairly straightforward door handle as you can see no weird trick door handle like a lot of 90s supercars you just walk up stick your fingers into this little hole next to the door handle pull on it and then the door opens right up exactly what you'd expect all right now the f50 is open but I'm not gonna climb inside just yet instead I want to start with the front compartment because I have always wondered what's underneath those giant f50 nostrils so to get into the front compartment there's a little latch on the driver's side underneath the dashboard you pull it and that sort of unlatches the front compartment and then you can open it up and it opens to this position it's actually a fairly large component it doesn't just pop right open and you could make the argument that it's a two-person job since you want to be really careful not to bend anything but anyway once you're in here a few interesting quirks in the front compartment one is there's not all that much luggage storage up here even though this is theoretically where the trunk would be the only storage you have is this carbon fiber panel that sort of shaped like a storage area everything else is functional being used for some car purpose and so you don't really have all that much space up in the front trunk to actually put your luggage like you might expect sorry with that said one item you do have in the front compartment next to the little storage area these giant fans for cooling of course and that explains the nostrils this unique distinctive f50 design characteristic these fans are open to the outside for airflow and they have to have pretty big openings to get air since they're rather large fans and so the car has pretty big nostrils up front and that's why and next up two other interesting items in the front compartment one is over on the passenger side at the very front corner of the car you have this little zipper bag that's held in place by two leather straps that bag contains tire sealant obviously no space in this car for a spare tire so you get that sealant instead in case you have a flat in your f50 and you want to patch the tire by the side of the road the other cool thing in this front compartment there's a little plaque in here that gives your f50s serial number out of the total production run of three hundred and forty nine cars and that's just cool to see this may not be as beautiful as some porsche interior plaque telling you precisely where your gt3 touring RRS special edition fits but that plaque is a little bit more special wouldn't you say and next up we move on to the interior of the f50 but before we get in here I want to talk door panel because this car has vastly more luxuries than the f40 that preceded it and a good example of that is on the door panel for instance you have a little storage cubby you could put a wallet in there for instance a huge luxury compared to the f40 s blank flat panel of carbon fiber and in the f50 you have a door handle look at this you can pull this and open up the door pretty luxurious compared to the f40 s rope which you pulled to get out the f50 was clearly designed with more creature comforts in mind like a door handle also notable on the door panel you can see there's a hand-cranked for the window now the f40 had that too but still worth mentioning to show you how you roll down the window in a Ferrari f50 bought anyway next it comes time to climb inside the f50 and you can see there is a massive door sill here and at the front part you have this little rubber panel that looks like a bath mat I guess that's because they know you'll be dragging your feet across the door sill and they don't want you to scratch carbon fiber or a painted surface so we have rubber there instead you also have four diagonal rubber lines at the very front corner of the door pane I think for this exact same purpose but anyway you make it over the door sill and the first thing you notice in here at least the first thing I notice the floor mats which say f50 in huge print in the f50 font I love how these look and I would love to have a set of these in my Kia just for ironies sake although I suspect a pair of f50 floor mats probably goes for like 9 grand on ebay still I can dream they and next up of course the next thing you notice is the seeds which are very distinctive in their appearance for one thing black on the outside red in the center they're also very tight even compared to modern sport seats they hug you're really close to keep you from sliding around in corners and you can see the seat belt is kind of integrated into the seat it's part of it comes through a hole over on one side and then it plugs into a buckle over on the other side near the center tunnel that buckle also comes through a hole in the seat so the belt and the seat itself kind of lived together in harmony sort of intertwined but anyway moving further inside the f50 I want to talk about tween the seats where the most prominent item in here is the gear lever and not just any gear lever but a gated 6-speed manual now the f40 has a dogleg meaning first is down and to the left but in the f50 it's a six-speed with a traditional arrangement first is up and to the left and reverses all the way over to the right and down now you can see the gear pattern is not printed on the shifter itself instead that's carbon-fiber with a Ferrari horse instead the pattern is printed next to the shifter so it's always there just not on the lever and next up also between the seats next to the gear lever you have the climate controls but they're limited to just two what dials over on the left you have the fan speed and over on the right you have the air temperature and yes this car does have air conditioning but that's all the controlling you can do how much air do you want and what temperature do you want it and you can see your climate vents in this car are pretty limited as well on the dashboard there's only three and they're all in the you don't have separate climate vents over on the driver's side or the passenger side like basically every other car this is all you get then again that's pretty much all you need because this is a pretty small interior those vents really do do the job and beyond those vents on the dashboard that aim at the passengers there are also three more vents on the top of the dashboard that aim at the windshield in case you want to use the defogger but like I showed you before there's no dial to turn on the defogger so if you want to use it you just close the vents for the passengers and open the vents for the windshield and then air will go towards the windshield instead of towards the passengers if you want to switch that just close the vents on the top of the dashboard reopen the ones aimed at the passengers and then you've turned off your defogger we're keeping it really simple in terms of f50 climate control but anyway going back between the seats the next interesting thing here is the parking brake which actually isn't really all that interesting but that's where it is and that's how it operates in the f50 you also have here a button for the hazard lights which isn't that unusual except you press it to turn it on and they make an insane noise take a listen now I wouldn't find that noise to be so weird except that's the same noise this car makes when you turn on the turn signal every single time you go to signal a lane change or a turn you get I'm not sure why they felt the need to make such a weird noise accompany the turn signals maybe they thought the regular clicking sound couldn't be heard over the sound of the engine but that's the turn signal sound in the Ferrari f50 strangely enough and next up still between the seats this time between the backrests you have this little leather storage area that appears to make room for a book I assume this is for the owner's manual which isn't in the car right now it probably perfectly fits in there and that's a good spot for it because this car has no glovebox so you stick your manual in there and maybe your registration paperwork in case you get pulled over and finally speaking of storage one more item in this vicinity behind the seats you have a little storage area and you can see there are little leather straps here that can hold in some luggage this car came with fitted luggage more about that in a little bit but that's where one of the pieces goes directly behind the seats gives you a little more room to add to that cavernous space you have in the front compartment and next up one of the very weirdest quirks of the f50 has to be the interior rear view mirror which has this bizarre shape to it very strange and I was not expecting that from this car it turns out the shape of this mirror is designed to perfectly correspond to the shape of the rear window behind the seats any other mirror shape and you would have extra mirror that wouldn't really help you see out anyway since the window is only a certain size and so that's why you have your mirror in that rather strange shape in the f50 who knew but anyway next we move on to actually starting up at the f50 which has kind of an interesting procedure first you unfold the folded key then you stick it into the ignition which is pretty standard of course then you press this rubber start engine button right below the ignition and only then does the car fire up you can't just turn the key you have to press the button after you've turned the key which is kind of unusual but that's how it works and next up once you start up the car probably the biggest surprise is the gauge cluster which is largely electronic very different from this analog car you can see all sorts of different colors and readouts on here now over on the left you have all of your engine gauges that show temperature or oil pressure your fuel level that sort of thing over on the right you have your speedometer fairly straightforward kind of speaks for itself and in the middle you have the tachometer and you can see the very highest number on the tachometer is 10,000 rpm you won't find that in basically any other car it owes to the f50s Formula one derived engine and also one last thing in that gauge cluster in the lower right you have a little screen that is currently displaying this vehicles total mileage and also some little pixel display which looks like an ship you might encounter in the asteroids video game now that screen is configurable below the steering column to the right you have two little black circular buttons if you press the one on the right you can see it goes through various different items on this screen some of which are rather cryptic for instance there's the number 30 with like a transmitter on it not really sure what that is you keep pressing the button and you get to this which looks like half of a sedan with an antenna sticking up out the back again not really sure what that is it's almost as if they designed these things to be as cryptic as possible because no logical person could easily interpret that now I mentioned you have two little circle buttons in this area below the steering column the one on the left is a little simpler you press that and you can get a km/h readout to display since the speedometer is in miles per hour they figured if you ever wanted to see km/h it would be pretty easy to just let you press that button and pop up your speed so you have that redundancy and next up a few other interesting controls in this car for one thing to the left of the steering wheel in the gauge cluster you have a few switches one of which is the axle lifter you push this and the front of the car raises up that is pretty impressive this is a 1995 models cars 25 years old and it has an axle lifter it had to be one of the very first cars with this feature and it surely comes in handy when you're trying to clear low curbs or steep driveways because this car is so low next up another control worth noting in the center of the steering wheel you have the horn which sounds like this [Music] yes the f50s horn sounds normal which is actually kind of a surprise because a lot of Ferraris from this era had this weird air horn that sounded like a music note but not the f50 not so normal in here is the operation of the headlights okay to turn them on there's this stalk sticking off the steering column to the left you twist it forward and then the headlights are on pretty standard and you pull it forward and you can flash the brights again pretty standard but then it gets weird you want to turn on the high beams permanently you push this stalk down like a turn signal lever and then the high beams go on you can also push this stock up like a turn signal lever but if you do that nothing discernible happens the lights don't change in any way but that control is available to you it's almost like this is a turn signal lever they repurposed so you turn on the brights by what would usually be putting on your left turn signal and then you have the right turn signal possibility too but they didn't have anything for it so it's just there now interestingly the turn signal in this car is operated by a separate lever that also comes off the left side of the steering column and that one's just normal push it up for a right turn down for a left turn so you have two separate stocks coming off the steering column that you can both operate the same way push them up or down but only one is actually the turn signals very strange way to do it and by the way the lights themselves are kind of strange too when you just turn on the regular headlights what turns on is the small outer lights in the headlight housing when you go to turn on the high beams then the larger headlight looking things turn on so you'll only have the larger lights on if you have your brights on as for the lights and back they're fairly standard just for circles like on most Ferrari models from this era and the rear turn signal is a little orange circle inside the outer circle taillight in the back just in case you wondered how the eff fifties rear turn signal operates and next if we move on to the engine in the f50 and there is a lot to say for one thing let's get this engine cover open to do that there's a little latch in the driver's dorsal area in the back you pull it and then that sort of unlatches the engine cover then you open it up and it is quite a big piece as you can see this really should be a two-person job one can do it but it's heavy and you don't want to flex anything but once you get the engine lid up these two props on either side lock into place and they keep it open and then you can behold the engine and it truly is a sight to see partially because you can just see everything back here no cover a lot of bodywork is removed so everything is visible and it really is beautiful and special and very cool to be able to see it all now like I mentioned this is a 4.7 liter v12 derived from a Formula One car engine from just a few years earlier this car has about 510 horsepower and about 350 pound feet of torque those may not seem like huge numbers for a Ferrari supercar but this only weighs around 3,000 pounds which is pretty good and it still managed to do 0 to 60 in 3.8 seconds and hit a top speed of over 200 miles an hour which was a huge deal back in 95 now two other interesting items in the engine area from one thing if you look in here you can see the inboard suspension the suspension is not directly at the wheels in this car instead for packaging and probably weight distribution reasons it's further in you don't see that all that often of course the other big deal about the engine is how it sounds an f1 derived v12 got to sound pretty good right well let's take a listen and by the way before I move on to the rest of the exterior items in this car have a look at how the car looks exploded with the rear open and the front open a why the bodywork comes off these two big panels it's not an angle you get to see very often with the f50 no angle is frankly but it's unusual and worthy of mention with these two big panels not where they usually belong and next up a few other important f50 items worth mentioning well I'm on the outside one I have always loved the look of the rear grille back here you can see it's mesh and you can look into that and again see a lot of the engine and the engine compartment if you want to see what's going on back there they definitely have everything on display which makes sense because it's beautiful and really special and next up a few other f50 exterior traits one is this giant wing which is very distinctive because it sort of builds the entire way down the side of the car and then explodes as a giant wing at the end it is very different from the f40 swing which just kind of sticks right up at the back of the car at a 90 degree angle the f50 had a much smoother more gradual wing although it altum Utley comes at least as high as the one in the f40 and also another notable exterior design element in this car is the wheels which I have always found interesting for one thing their center lock wheels like race cars have that's no surprise you would expect that from the Ferraris supercar of this era the thing that I especially liked though is the way they were designed the front wheels are kind of flat with a design to them but mostly they just look like normal car wheels the cool thing is that the back wheels have the very same design but they are inset inside the wheel so that kind of pushed in a little bit more and there's more of a lip I've always loved this because it makes the wheel feel wider in the back which of course it is because there are wider tires in the rear but it really focuses your eyes and makes you realise that the rear tires are the wider thicker set and it adds more depth and drama to the back of this car instead of just having four wheels that look identical I really like how they did that with the on the f50 and also one other important exterior item is the fuel door it's on the driver's side and to open it you just stick your hand into this hole and open it up and then you can unscrew the fuel cap and put fuel in your f50 pretty simple and finally our last exterior item to discuss with this car is the top situation when you had an f50 you had three different choices of how you wanted to drive it as it related to the top four what you have the soft top as you can see right here rarely you see an f50 soft top in place I've never seen it before but this is how the f50 looks with its soft top on or you could remove the soft top and then you had a Targa or convertible experience again this was unusual for a Ferrari supercar the f50 was the only open roof Ferrari supercar until the laferrari aperto a couple of years ago but you also had one other option and that was a hardtop if you wanted to drive your f50 in coupe mode it was a color matched hardtop and it was rather large there was nowhere in the car that you could stick it when you weren't using it instead the f50s top is transported in this box it's large in the f50 community this is referred to as the circus box because it looks like the kind of thing that circuses and carnivals use to transport their stuff around and when f50s trade hands one of the first questions prospective buyers ask is does it come with the circus box and of course as you can see this one does now as you might expect given that there's a giant separate box for the top to this car it isn't exactly easy to get it in place in fact it's rather cumbersome this isn't like most Targa roof cars where you just latch it in and you're good to go I've heard that Ferrari dealers will charge one to two hours of labor just to put the roof on or take it off so most f50 owners kind of make a choice on or off and then they stick with that for a period of time usually their entire ownership and by the way the circus box wasn't the only accessory that accompanied the f50 you also got luggage and here's one piece of the luggage you can see it's designed to match the look of the seats with the red inside and it looks pretty cool and there were several pieces that were fitted to go in various places throughout the car you also got seat covers that were custom fitted for the seat size in the f50 I guess maybe you would stick these on when you parked the car outside with the roof off so the seats didn't get damaged or rained on or whatever but my favorite f50 accessory undoubtedly is the shoes every f50 came new with special shoes open up this box this is the original f50 shoe box and you can see the f50 shoes this car is 25 years old most people have lost their f50 shoes by now but this car still has them I've been hearing about the f50 shoes since I was a kid and this is a pair of them I've never seen them or touched them before these were the shoes you got when you ordered your f15 ooh yes I think you were able to choose a size now these are driving shoes and the f50s pedal box is kind of offset and a little tight I'll mention that more when I Drive it later and so these shoes may be more helpful for getting feet into the f50s pedal box to work the pedals but that's the story of the f50 shoes which still accompany this car 25 years after it was sold new and so those are the quirks and features of the Ferrari f50 and now we're going to talk a little bit with David Lee the car's owner about what it's like to have this car and this amazing collection so David tell us about the f50 well the f50 is is just a amazing car it's a it represents the 50-year anniversary of Ferrari and it's as the ultra supercar so we got the production cars are great and every about every 10 years they come out with a kind of an ultra low production special car now the F is different because it's the first time they use a full-ride fiber all right chessy right on the whole body it's also they took a f1 engine and mounted on this production car so as we drive it later on you're gonna hear it right out and everything it's just right sounds like the f1 engine is so much different the other cool thing among the the ultra supercars for walk for a long time this was the only roadster right so we had a soft top right hard top if you have the collection as you do the f50 is the second hardest to get because it's you know it's the second rarest essentially was it difficult for you to find one a nice one what's the process like it was very difficult to find one and you know I like the good quality rent and so forth it seemed like the 288 was hard to find sure that 50 was also writing to be hard to find right comparatively the f40 is common morg versus this car basically I mean there's there's like five times as many these you never see do you drive it often you know I do drive it often and but you know because because I have over 30 cars so a little harder to tend to the volume in it and when I do drive it I don't drive it around the block I mean I I have a good driver probably drive it for 50 to 70 miles when the f2 dick came out with some controversy because the f40 was such an icon compared to the f40 what do you think about this car well you know the the airport is a v8 twin-turbo very balanced very fast very nimble I mean it's it's a great car when they got into doing this it was a little bit of the project is now to putting a v12 right engine in there you know new body and new drive trends a lot of driver people think all it it wasn't perfect until the Enzo but but you know as a driver as an owner if you ask me the sensation I get in driving it is so much yeah I get it as I'm not a professional racecar driver anything yeah I can do it so much driving it the shifting positions are different I like it a lot all right cool Arie you ready to take this out yeah let's do it are you scared I trust you I trust you later well if that makes one of us all right drive in the f50 this is a review in the time of Tobit we're both wearing masks but that's the safe way to do it all right first thing you notice when you drive this car I'm stunned at how easy the gear lever is and the clutch you know it's funny because this is 95 and I think from that era I think about the 512 TR which is a very difficult car to drive very heavy clutch very difficult gear lever system this car is not like that at all the clutch is light and easy the gear lever is easy it's actually kind of a trellis shifting [Applause] now it is pretty tight in here for me call our guy my knees are right up against the dashboard which kind of curves down not exactly the most comfortable and the puddles are offset and so it's a little bit tight in the pedal box especially for more modern cars it's something I'm used to seeing on older Ferraris like the boxer the seat is also tight but a lot of cars are and it's not that bad it's totally acceptable the sound though really is impressive no surprise considering the engine is the right from Formula One but it is quite a noise what I'm really surprised about is just how easy the car feels to drive I can't believe it I mean the steering is easy it's not incredibly heavy no power steering feel like the Testarossa and 512 TR the gear lever the clutch it all feels easy you ever drive it with the roof off sounds it'll be good because you can hear the engine really well you know one of the interesting things about the f50 and the values only really started to pick up in the last few years they were kind of ignored for a long time but now they've gone totally off the chart the f40 is such a nightmare by comparison like it's so tough in this we've got air conditioning going on it feels pretty comfortable in here give it a little gas [Music] that is an amazing amazing sound I mean that's what you get when you get a Formula one engine you know it'll rotor it feels very quick too I mean obviously it's gonna be quick I think part of the feeling of speed is enhanced by the engine being right there being low it makes it feel even faster the car also feels very solid when you drive the m-40 it has a little bit of a old-school gear stuff you know it rattles kind of vibe to it this is not like that this feels like just really really well done man the kind of the difference between the curbing and neutral our being here is insane the amount of sound is just unreal it definitely doesn't quite have the braking capabilities it seems that the Enzo and the lake wants to go in that sense you can tell that it's older and obviously the interior doesn't have those screens in here that sort of thing what a great car though this is really one of my favorite shifters and fit that comes I never I've never driven in so that's the Ferrari f50 this is one of the most amazing modern Ferrari models frankly one of the most amazing modern supercars with its formula one derived v12 engine and its really low production numbers and it's insanely distinctive styling this car is rare and it's cool and it's special and it can be yours for three million dollars if you can find one anyway now it's time to give the f50 a Doug score starting with the weekend categories and styling I like how the f50 looks but not everyone does and it gets a 7 out of 10 acceleration zero to 60 is 3.8 seconds and it gets an 8 out of 10 handling is very sharp and it earns a 9 out of 10 fun factor is huge on amazed by how enjoyable it is to drive and it gets a 10 out of 10 cool factor is obvious it's a tremendously exciting car and it gets a 10 out of 10 for a total weekend score of 44 out of 50 next up are the daily categories and features it has basically none a few things but not much and it gets a 2 out of 10 Comfort is low the ride is harsh and passenger space is small and it gets a 2 out of 10 quality is good the car is expensive to maintain but that makes sense it has an f1 engine the interior is nice enough and it gets a 5 out of 10 practicality is basically non-existent and it gets a 1 out of 10 value is tough these will always hold their value but I do think they've kind of peaked in the 3 plus million dollar range they probably won't skyrocket up much from here but then again what do I know either way with that projection in mind it gets a 6 out of 10 for a total weekend score of 16 out of 50 added up in the dug score is 60 out of 100 which places it here against supercars and top sports cars from this era it gets the exact same score as the f40 which is funny because a common criticism of the f50 at the time was that it didn't really improve on the f40 but as you can see the f50 does get a better daily score it's more usable and reasonable in the f40 though the f40 wins out in the weekend scores because it's just more raw of course I would love to own either one [Music]

Channel: Doug DeMuro

Views: 1,297,345

Rating: 4.9125414 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: DSE6-kr8Uoc

Length: 35min 0sec (2100 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 21 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/npoggi79]

The only Ferrari that is:

Mid Engine

V12

6 Speed

Roadster

[u/wakeriderof87]

Compared to 18 million for an F1 these things are a real bargain. I mean at 3 million can you really afford NOT to buy one?

[u/Tatersaladftw]

Early 2000s these were like 6-800k. Crazy how much they jumped. Arguably my favorite halo car from them.

[u/pegi3]

I know this is an unpopular opinion but I actually prefer the F50 to the F40.

That screaming F1-sourced V12 is just heavenly.

[u/Bamres]

I was wondering when Doug would get his hands on one of these, right up the 90s alley and seems to be less known than the F40 or Enzo

[u/FrydTheBeast]

I know many consider the F50 ugly, but I really like the look of this car! I think it looks even better in yellow.

[u/charlie_14al]

Had to go straight to this after

https://youtu.be/3MDTcXGsjuo

Probably my favourite car video.

[u/detroit_testarossa]

F50 is basically a daily driveable F40.

[u/balzac2m]

Oh no, u/doug-demuro, you said weekend category twice. Time for a reshoot, I'm sure Mr. Lee will understand you have to drive it again.