To celebrate their 40th anniversary, in 1987 Ferrari released the F40. The F40's base sticker price was $400,000, which is the same as roughly $830,000 today after adjusting for inflation. A scant 1,315 F40s were ever produced, and some buyers reportedly ended up paying $1.6 million to cut the line (that's $3 million today).
Fun Ferrari facts: Up until a few months ago, Ferrari had always stuck to a strict production limit of 7,000 cars every year. This limit is in place to ensure that demand always far outweighs supply, even in a bad economy. At the behest of their FIAT corporate overlords, starting this year Ferrari will raise their production limit by 5%. That's an extra 350 cars per year. In 2013, Ferrari generated approximately $3.2 billion in revenue and profits of around $350 million. Back to our story…
In 1995, the Ferrari F50 was introduced with a base sticker price of $550,000 ($860,000 today). Only 349 F50s were ever produced. Why such a seemingly odd number? Because in the car world, producing 350 models was the number that allowed you to be considered extremely rare. So Ferrari decided to produce one fewer than extremely rare, just to be safe. As if that wasn't tough enough, if you wanted to own an F50 you had to already have owned three other Ferraris. This ensured that the Ferrari corporate offices that: #1) You wouldn't try to flip the car for a profit a month after taking ownership. And #2) You would actually drive the car from time to time. You wouldn't hide it away in a garage forever.
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In 2002, the Ferrari Enzo was announced with a base sticker price was $659,000. Once again, Ferrari chose to produce 349 Enzos to ensure that it would have ultra-rare status. Eventually, after receiving an overwhelming desperate demand, Ferrari ended up producing 400 Enzos. The 400th was donated to the Vatican for a charity auction that ended up raising $1.1 million. All the other Enzo owners were hand picked by Ferrari. Anyone who was an original and current owner of an F40 or F50 was personally invited by Ferrari to be first in line for an Enzo.
So, to recap, there were 1,315 F40s, 349 F50s and 400 Enzos ever produced. Recently, Ferrari announced it was producing a new car called the Ferrari Sergio that, in terms of exclusivity, absolutely blows all three of those previous models out of the water. So how many Ferrari Sergios are going to be produced? 348? Nope. 300? Nope. 200? Nope. 150? Nope… Try 6.
That's right, Ferrari will be producing just six Sergios. The exact price of each Sergio is not yet known, but the final number is believed to be multiple millions of dollars. And just like with previous ultra-exclusive models, Ferrari is being very picky about who gets a Sergio. As a matter of fact, Ferrari just went ahead and hand picked the six lucky buyers. So if you had your fingers crossed and haven't gotten a phone call from Maranello yet, I may have some disappointing news for you.
The six Sergios have not actually been crafted yet. They will be based on a concept car that was designed by rock star Eric Clapton and introduced at the most recent Paris auto show. The concept car did not have a windshield or side-view mirrors. Check it out:
Most insiders expect that the Sergio will eventually resemble something like this more final version of Eric Clapton's concept car:
Can't wait to see the final version and hopefully we'll find out someday who the lucky buyers are!
