Some time ago we brought you an article about the very first Ferrari Testarossa Spider ever made. That car (which you can read about here) was commissioned by the beeg boss of the Fiat empire, Gianni Agnelli. Well, as it turns out, he also had another very special car made in that period, the world’s only automatic Ferrari F40. Yep, you read that right, an automatic F40.

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Ahead of its Time?

There was a time that no sportscar maker released a car without a clutch pedal. Self-shifting transmissions were reserved for large family cars. But somewhere things turned around. Nowadays most of the larger sportscar specialists (Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren, etc) don’t offer ANY manual cars. However, the automatic Ferrari F40 was not made as a precursor to the future. It was born from necessity. Signor Agnelli had injured his leg in a car accident. As a result he had difficulty depressing the clutch of a manual car. This is only temporary a problem when you are the boss as you can have something built just for you.

Click here to read about our driving experience of a Ferrari F40 in Italy.

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A Valeo-developed automatic shifting system was fitted to the car, pictured above. The system was not developed around a torque-converter auto. The Valeo system uses a normal gear lever and the original transmission. When the driver moves the lever, microswitches send signals to a control unit. A clutch actuator engaged or disengaged the clutch in milliseconds.

Safety features prevented the car being started in gear and the driver selecting too high or too low a gear. Signor Agnelli also optioned his F40 with black seats, which was completely unique at the time. Every other F40 left the production line with red seats. You can see the black seats, and the lack of a clutch pedal in the cabin pic at the top of this post. The last time this car changed hands was in 2008 for over €400 000.