The story of the mysterious Ferrari FX

Posted on 10-04-2016 at 19:01 by nicolasr – 34 Comments”

The story of a revolutionary Ferrari, which is extremely rare.

It was 1994. Prince Abdul Hakeem from the wealthy oliestaatje Brunei knocked on the door at Pininfarina. He wanted a Ferrari, specially built for him. That in itself was not such a very strange question, the royal family had in the years before, a huge amount of cars by the renowned Italian fashion house.

But this car had something come what virtually no other car had, and certainly Ferrari’s of the time; a sequential gearbox. The technique was in its infancy and was really only used in rallying and in Formula 1. Money played no role, prince Abdul Hakeem had on his 18th a fortune of 1 billion dollar, and should that not prove sufficient, he also had the pins for the 40 billion that the family will be in their possession.

The man that all of this was going to realise it was Paolo Garella, Pininfarina’s prototype manager. Who found the Testarossa to be a good car for this project. Pininfarina had quite a bit of experience with that rammer from the 80’s, they had him self-designed. That was step 1, but now came the second step, finding a good sequential gearbox which both work in relatively comfort able to deliver, but also rapidly could switch and that is in the car fit.

Therefor he went along with different manufacturers. One of them was Prodrive in England, known of the Subaru’s that they under took for the rallies in the early 90s. That company was already developing a semi-automatic transmission for street-legal car, so Pininfarina saw what in a collaboration. They had a gearbox that might be suitable for the job, didn’t he fit all the way into the chassis. But Pininfarina would Pininfarina, there are no solution was found. The radiator was at the front of the car moved, they fit the front of the car to the necessary cool air to get inside and after a lot of gefrummel could the gears of the manual zesbak now with flippers can be inserted. Then the bike was slightly taken in hand, the catalyst was removed and Tubi was hired to be a appropriate sports exhaust, and ultimately resulted in the flat V12 420 HP. What at that time, of course, a huge bowl of power.

Now that problem tackled was the design of the body start. That you can leave to Pininfarina, we all know that. The car appeared in the distance, a bit on the 360 Modena, which Pininfarina only in 1999 that it would create. Furthermore, this model has a transparent hood, a trick that we are many years later with a number of other models back would see. Added to this was the body made of carbon. In that time is priceless and also very difficult to edit. Only a handful of people had knowledge of. But it is they are successful, tests in the wind tunnel showed that this Ferrari through the wind better cut than anything she had made. Nice work.

Pininfarina had for the certainty of three-FX-and made and upon delivery it was prince Hakeem so delighted that he immediately three more ordered. Only they had to be based on the chassis of the Ferrari F512M, that was lighter, stiffer, and the engine delivered 20 hp extra. The first three FX-and were straight to the tuner for more power. And that tuner was of course not the ‘beunhaas’ on the corner, no, that was the Formula 1 team Williams, certainly at that time the most successful team that there was to be found.

And which team will let no grass grow. The sequential box was replaced by the gearbox from the Formula 1 car and the buttons that switched could be on the steering wheel were replaced for the flippers which we now so often see

All well and good, we write now 1997, but the market in Asia was in a deep recession and also Brunei had a bit of a bind. Or actually, the brother of the Sultan had a bit of a bind. The man was notorious for his expenditure. He had a 52-meter-long super yacht named “Tits”. The two ship’s boats had the names “Nipple 1″ Nipple 2”. He had bronze statues of people who are having sex with each other had, just to be somewhat puriteinsere sultanbroer to bars. He was single-handedly responsible for about 80 million of expenditure by Pininfarina for the sultan was the size full. His brother was the financial chain and put his cars, he was also lost, who were behind lock and key in one of the warehouses that the family owned.

All in 1 blue Ferrari FX after. That was still with Williams.

Williams was, undoubtedly, a beautiful carriage, but sat there not waiting for it to actually also the owner of the. A phone call to an American businessman solved that problem, a certain Dick Marconi bought the Ferrari FX no 4 and shipped him to Tustin, Califonrnië. And there stands the car until the day of today. In a museum, along with other exotics. Not screened for the public, but you should take a look.

The FX has a total of 1800 miles on the odometer and has been for years not driven. The last time the engine was started there was a great amount of white smoke and the car has since not addressed.

Despite the fact that the FX is a premonition of the technique that Ferrari would go to apply in later street-legal car, such as the F355 F1, for example, his tank was copied from that of the Fx. Not bad for just a toy of an extremely wealthy collector?

Gallery: Ferrari FX Pininfarina

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Thanks to everyone for the tip!