The Cheapest V12 Ferrari For 30 Years Is Quietly Becoming Blue-Chip

 https://www.hotcars.com/cheapest-v12-ferrari-for-30-years-is-quietly-becoming-blue-chip/

Turning Classics Green – Running a 1979 Ferrari 400 on P1 Fuels

I stumbled up on this website with an article from last year:

https://bridgeclassiccars.co.uk/turning-classics-green-running-a-1979-ferrari-400-on-p1-fuels/

I was unaware what P1 fuel was all about but with AI I got the following response:

P1 fuels are 100% fossil-free, drop-in replacement synthetic and renewable e-fuels manufactured by the German green-tech company P1 Fuels. They work directly in standard internal combustion engines without requiring any car or fuel system modifications. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

Key Characteristics

Drop-in Compatibility: Fully compliant with standard EN228 fuel regulations, meaning it works in regular road cars and classic vehicles without changes.
Lower Emissions: Reduces well-to-wheel CO2 emissions significantly compared to traditional fossil gasoline.
Composition: Formulated using bio-based components or captured atmospheric carbon combined with green hydrogen. [1, 2, 3, 4]

Major Uses

Motorsport: Serves as the official sustainable fuel supplier for major competitions like the FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) and FIA Karting Championships. [1, 2]
Everyday & Classic Cars: Used to power legacy and modern internal combustion engines sustainably, famously utilized by drivers like Sebastian Vettel in classic Formula 1 cars. [1]


P1 Racing Fuel costs €4.35 per litre (plus VAT) for products like the SBX 54-litre can, while previously supplying official championship fuel (such as the WRC) at €6.96 per litre before changing suppliers. [1, 2]

For sale : RHD Ferrari 400 Automatic - Leon Page - Page & Moy motor racing tours

I spotted this RHD 400 Automatic Carburettor on Dutch license plates for sale:

https://www.carandclassic.com/nl/advertenties/C2115230

So out of curiosity I checked it via the Dutch road registery (RDW) and apparently it has been in the Netherlands since 1993. 

And the advert has quite some historic reference about the car (sorry, it's in Dutch). 

Dit is een stijlvolle en zeer goed gedocumenteerde Ferrari 400 Automatic, afgewerkt in chic zilvergrijs metallic met een zwart lederen interieur. Het betreft de gezochte vroege versie met zes Weber-carburateurs, gebouwd vóór de introductie van de met brandstofinjectie uitgeruste 400i. Deze carburateurversie staat bekend om zijn karaktervolle V12, een hoger vermogensniveau en aanzienlijk lagere productiecijfers, waardoor hij vandaag de dag duidelijk zeldzamer is en geliefder onder verzamelaars. Deze Ferrari 400 werd voor het eerst geregistreerd in het Verenigd Koninkrijk op 28 februari 1978, met kenteken AJU266T, op naam van Mk L. Page uit Rothley, Leicestershire. Page was de eerste eigenaar en reed de auto tot 1980, waarna de auto werd ingeruild voor een nieuwe 400 bij 29. 000 mijl. De Ferrari kreeg vervolgens kenteken AJT400A en kwam terecht bij M. A. Sydall in Grantham, en daarna bij verzamelaar Roland Saam via Modena Engineering in Castle Combe. Saam schreef deze auto in voor de Ferrari Owners Club Concours op Brocket Hall, waar de 400 in Klasse K een keurige 156 punten behaalde. Eind jaren tachtig werd de auto geadverteerd in de Ferrari Market Letter: metallic Grigio, zwart leer, “bare-metal” hersteld door Terry Hoyle Ltd in de originele zilveren kleur, technisch perfect afgesteld, voorzien van een Ansa-uitlaatsysteem en met 67. 000 mijl op de teller. De vraagprijs was destijds 95. 000 USD. Later volgde nog een vijfde Britse eigenaar, waarna de Ferrari op 26 april 1993 werd geregistreerd in Nederland. De auto verscheen vervolgens opnieuw in de Ferrari Market Letter, dit keer via Peter van Megen: zilver, zwart leer, 73. 000 mijl, 29. 900 USD. Er werd gesuggereerd dat Jimmy Page (oprichter en gitarist van de wereldwijd beroemde band Led Zeppelin) de eerste eigenaar zou zijn. Een charmant verhaal, maar historisch niet te bewijzen. De auto is sinds 2019 geregistreerd op naam van de huidige eigenaar; in Nederland heeft de Ferrari slechts twee eigenaren gehad. Technisch is er recent veel werk verricht, waaronder revisie van de cilinderkoppen, vervanging van de distributieketting, nieuwe filters, koppakking(en) en een complete remmenrevisie. De auto heeft een geldige MOT tot 19 december 2027. Dankzij de zeldzame carburateurmotor, de uitgebreide historie en de complete documentatie is deze Ferrari 400 Automatic een bijzonder interessant exemplaar voor de liefhebber die de auto visueel én technisch naar een hoger niveau wil tillen.

Now we know for sure that Leon Page owned 24885 and traded it for 32017. And apparently I did had a blog about that one (32017) without knowing or remembering that:

Ferrari 400: The Silver Stone Classic Sale 2017 - Ferrari 400i Automatic

As for Mr. Page: Leon Page must be the Page of Page & Moy, the travel agency. 

They used to arrange tours to Le Mans, see this article in Motor Sport Magazine:

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/february-1979/52/page-moy/

Autogespot in London - Ferrari 365GT4 2+2 - Venezuela

This car got spotted this month in London and a few weeks before in Maranello. I posted it in the Facebook group and the owner responded to it. 

Apparently it´s his daily driver and the license plate was referring to it´s production date: 9766 SF

976 --> 1976  and 6 for the month June. And SF you can guess. 

The VIN is 19693, so it's one of the very last production (19709 being the very last one). It's delivered new in Venezuela to Andrea Ippolito Brancaccio, famous in the motorcycle world with Johny Cecotto.

https://www.moto.it/MotoGP/andrea-ippolito-che-porto-cecotto-e-lavado-ai-titoli-mondiali.html

Biography (English) : https://www.aimaweb.net/contact/

I did find this blogpost with another 365GT4 2+2 in Venezuela:

https://erwin400.blogspot.com/2023/08/exotic-ferrari-locations-caracas.html

Brock Yates - Enzo Ferrari - The Man and the Machine - four-door-Ferrari - 400i - 8.32

 I recently finished this book and a very good book may I say:

It's a biography about Enzo Ferrari and provides many insights about him and how the company developed. As might be known; Enzo Ferrari needed the road cars to cover the costs for his racing department. This is where his main focus and attention was. Yes, the road cars were a necessity and effectively was always of a lesser interest to him. When Fiat bought Ferrari the most important aspect to him was he remained in full control over the racing scuderia. Ever since the road cars production was merely controlled by Fiat. Albeit he likely must had some influence over it. In the book the following is mentioned: 

"Regardless of the myths built up around Enzo Ferrari and his later road cars - such as the 308GTB/GTS, 328GTB/GTS, 512BB Boxes, 400i Automatic - he had almost nothing whatsoever to do with their creation. The last road car that might be legitimately be considered a true Ferrari was the 365GTB4 Daytona. Subsequent automobiles were really more like limited-production Fiats (or mass-produced Ferraris) than like the classic quasi-racing cars of core."

The book also clearly pointed out a few times that Enzo considered buyers of these road cars so called "fools". He looked at them with much disdain. 

Another interesting passage in this book, which triggered me to write this blog is the following:

"While Enzo Ferrari  remained detached from the passenger-car operation on a daily basis, he did not fail to respond to the accolades being heaped on Porsche 959 - a twin-turbo charged, four-wheel-drive, 200 mph road car that would easily outperform the vaunted top-of-the-line Testarossa. This prompted him to counter with the development of the twin-turbo F40 (celebrating the fortieth anniversary of the Scuderia), a winged 200-mph coupe with a gutted interior similar to that of a racing car. The automobile delighted Ferrari, and when prototypes began to run at Fiorano, he exclaimed to a friend,  'This car is so fast it'll make you shit your pants.'
There is no question that his contribution to the F40 project was significant. This semi-racing car was the basis for Ferrari's reputation as the manufacturer of the fastest road cars on the earth (an issue that could be declared by Porsche and Lamborghini loyalists, but the F40 would remain a significant contender in that exclusive league by any measrurement)."

Interestingly I do happen have in my archive this unique photo with Enzo Ferrari in his Lancia Thema 8.32 next to a Porsche 959.

If you don't know, the Lancia Thema 8.32 is a 4 door saloon with a (detuned) Ferrari engine. It was labelled 8.32 as the name Ferrari was not allowed, nor were any Ferrari logo's allowed.  Only on the engine intake manifold it does state "Lancia by Ferrari". In any case, this nicely leads to the next paragraph in the book

"He made one other significant contribution, albeit a negative one, to the passenger-car side of the business. In 1987, the same year the F40 was formally introduced the Fiat management was on the verge of designing a four-door V12 Ferrari on the theme of the luxurious, automatic-transmission, V12 400i coupe. Ferrari was furious over this plan to emasculate his machinery into a tamer, four-door boulvardier. He protested so vigorously that the entire project was cancelled." 

When I had read this paragraph I immediately linked it to these blogs:

https://erwin400.blogspot.com/2024/12/prototipo-prototype-prova-concept-car.html

https://erwin400.blogspot.com/2025/05/prototipo-prototype-prova-concept-car.html

Very likely this must have been the car in question. Interestingly Pininfarina tried the same in 1980 and presented the concept car "Ferrari Pinin". Back then it was also declined by Enzo himself.

My 400 - MOT / APK done

 Earlier this week my 400 had passed it´s MOT (Dutch APK) in one go without any findings. Not a surprise as I barely had driven it since last time. The MOT costed only € 55,-  and no further maintenance required this time. Although I need to look into rear shockaborbers as one of them is bad (left backside), or mabye it's the load leveller. I think I will park this job for the winter. 

The good news is that the MOT is valid for another two years and the car is also roadtax free (in the Netherlands cars older than 40 years and registered before 1st jan 1988 are eligible for this ruling). Next to this I have also the all-risk insureance to pay which is € 872,- per year. 

Not much interesting info here, only adding it just for the records in my maintenance archive. 

1981 Ferrari 400i – Tailored To Perfection

Apparently I missed out on this article from 25th of March 2026, it only popped up on my radar today:

https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-european/1981-ferrari-400i-tailored-to-perfection/

Book - The complete Ferrari by Godfrey Eaton

One of the readers was so kind to scan the pages of this book with content about the Ferrari 365/400/412 series. It's now available as PDF on my Google Drive in the book section

Sammy Hagar - 1984 Ferrari 400i

 Via X :

https://x.com/sammyhagar/status/2064073593743433884?s=20

One in the can sounded fucking great back at it today. Can't wait to get out there on the road. Maybe I'll drive my old 1984 400i on this tour #ferrari #5150 #michaelanthony @chickenfootjoe #kennyaronoff #spidercherry pic.twitter.com/3Cz56tK1Ve

— Sammy Hagar (@sammyhagar) June 8, 2026

una rarità incredibile: Ferrari 400i straman,quando non esiste un cabrio..bisogna costruirselo

 Apparently it´s automatically dubbed in English via the URL. The embedded video you need to enable subtitling yourself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf9wZE7Za5M

School Gala 2026

A few weeks back I was approached by Arriën and asked if I was willing to drive his son to a school gala as he passed his exams. As they are true Ferrari enthusiasts I knew this would mean a lot to them, so it was a no-brainer for me. By surprise I received last week a Facebook reminder that I visited them with my 400 exactly 12 years ago.What a coincidence. See this blog:

https://erwin400.blogspot.com/2014/06/boys-driving-400.html

 

Yesterday was the big day so during lunch I picked up the 400 from the storage and parked it in the street. Not much later a few kids popped up on their bikes and noticed my car and I heard them
saying, what the fuck, that’s a Ferrari parked there. I could witness that from my top room where I was working with the window open. The car was very well inspected by the youngsters. One of them remarked very quickly it was an automatic. Just for the records I made this  photo of the situation:

 

 

It’s not often I have the 400 parked at home in the street. I do recall this instance as well whereby some youngster spotted the car in the middle of the night, read this blog:

 

Ferrari 400: Saturday 19th October 2013 - Auto Moto Italia Rosmalen

 

In any case, when arriving later that afternoon at the graduate the first thing we did was making this retrospective comparison photo. Thought that was nice, they compiled this photo:

 

 

As a side note, I have done this school gala driving once before, see this blog:

https://erwin400.blogspot.com/2015/05/ferrari-400-school-gala-steenwijk.html

 

So I knew what to expect. Unfortunately this day things worked out differently. Initially a small tour through the city was planned by the school but due to bad weather forecast this was cancelled earlier in the afternoon. As a result everyone ended up at a large public parking place nearby school but since so many cars showed up at once the roads and crossings were jammed and it all became a bit chaotic. I was lucky to be early and managed to get on the parking place line up queue. Exactly when we left home it started raining with lightning and thunder. But it was not as bad as forecasted.I think our location was just on the outer parts of the stormy weather. At least no hail or very heavy rain.

It lasted only about 30 min or so. Still I ended up running idle for about 1 hour on the parking place before we ended up on the red carpet. But before that the car stalled and did not had much power anymore to start up. Initially I was thinking it could be some kind of vapor lock since I was not driving for at least 45 min or so. And I was lucky to bring my starter booster with me. Once hooked up the car slowly started up again. Phew! Afterwards I realized the battery had become weak as I was standing still so long on the parking place with the heater blowers on to demystify the windscreens. Whilst the engine was running, but not driving, the battery charging must have been minimal if at all. So I guess
it was drained up quite a bit. On my return home it was fully charged again when properly driven. I turned it off and on and it started up with a strong whizz, it ran instantly.  

 

In any case both the graduate and their parents were very happy with the 400 showing up. So hereby another small photo compilation they made

And the gifts afterwards, a nice bottle of Italian Vino Bianco and a specific local sheep stone :-)

 

De-Veenendaalse-Kei-low.pdf

 

De Leersumse Kei » Stichting Pansophia

Update 24 July : And yesterday I got notified by someone who mentioned I was spotted. Typical he found that X-post from nearly 2 months ago.

Je komt wat tegen onderweg.
Ferrari 400 uit 1979 #gatochfietsen pic.twitter.com/8V8cNGnzbf

— Evert van de Beek (@evertvandebeek) June 9, 2026

BAT : No Reserve 1984 Ferrari 400 GT i

 Yes, yes, another great one on BAT : 

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1984-ferrari-400-gti-2/

And on Facebook:

I owned 42185 for 5 years. Drove it over 25,000 miles. No valve adjustment! Biggest single expense was replacing the TRX tires. I absolutely loved it, and only sold it at 75 (my age, not the car's) because I thought I was getting too old. Boy, was I stupid. It was both very quick and very comfortable. At 84, I could still drive it today and enjoy it. If only I hadn't been stupid.

Ferrari 400 manual carburettor - poland - lowered suspension

Spotted this one on Tiktok. Just adding this one for the records as its a rare 400 manuel carburettor version. It does have 400i rims though. I think its located in Poland:

https://www.tiktok.com/@ex.dustin.1603/video/7644865305457691906

@ex.dustin.1603 #viral #fyp #videotiktok ♬ original sound - ex.dustin.1603

When doing further checking I found it was published earlier on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlqpnOzTND8

And now seeing the lowered suspension I also recall I had published a blog about it before:

https://erwin400.blogspot.com/2025/09/pimp-my-ride-airride-ferrari-400gt.html

And additionally I also hit this FB post:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/Fanimotoryzacji/permalink/3302628333255296/

BAT : 1982 Ferrari 400i Automatic - Giovanni Bondini

 Another clean example on BAT. Enjoy the comments:

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1982-ferrari-400i-22/

For sale: The Most Underrated Classic Ferrari?

This one has been offered on BAT but wasn´t sold, see this blogpost:

https://erwin400.blogspot.com/2026/03/bring-trailer-bat-1979-ferrari-400.html

And now they have made a new video:

https://youtu.be/BjryhJa8cmk?si=Q9yxGtznPk62rLvk

or via FB: https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1B5EVwMRkv/

It is however not listed in their current inventory on their website.

Gli Amici della Ferrari - 2005-03 - Herrineringen aan Prins Bernhard door Hans Hugenholtz jr.

I bumped into this Dutch article regarding Prince Bernhard. It was written for the magazine "Gli Amici" of the Dutch Ferrari Club published in 2005 a few months after his death.

And of course it does contain a snippet about his Ferrari 400i Automatic. The author did happen to be involved with the sale of his car.

At the time it was bought by the car/truck dealer Sjaak van Vliet, see this paper snippet in the following blog:

https://erwin400.blogspot.com/2019/02/sjaak-van-vliet-ferrari-400i-prince.html

And in 2014 it ended up for sale by Nico Aaldering at the Gallery in Brummen, see this blog:

https://erwin400.blogspot.com/2014/08/ferrari-400i-prince-bernhard-video.html

The video link in that blog is no longer working but it's now available on Youtube (by the looks of it subtitles are not supported?):

 

The Gli Amici article is available via this download:

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/55b17431e4b07de0642552ee/t/57c719fef7e0abc90ae32feb/1472666111473/2005-03_Gli_Amici.pdf

Unfortunately a scanned pdf can't be translated by Google, so it's only interesting to read by people who master the Dutch language. I found it quite an entertaining read.

On a 2nd attempt I figured Google does translate images. So I converted the PDF into JPG files. And consequently translated each JPG page, et presto. Happy reading below. Click the photo to enlarge so it's readable (I hope). Else I have both the Dutch and English version saved as a PDF on my Google Drive as well. 

On a separate note, the article does contain a photo of the first DAF (Daffodil) presented in Maranello and closely inspected by Enzo. The DAF is renowed for the Variomatic transmission, perhaps these days better known as CVT. 

Dutch wiki: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variomatic

English wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variomatic

 The son of the founder of  DAF, Vice President Martien van Doorne,  did happen to have a Ferrari 400 Automatic in his collection. It was his favorite. See this blog: 

https://erwin400.blogspot.com/2020/05/bat-ferrari-400-carburettor-automatic.html

Being on the "automatic" side, Enzo was also particular keen on Automatics, as pointed out by his personal chauffeur as used in his personal Fiat 130 Coupe. See this blog:

https://erwin400.blogspot.com/2014/12/enzo-ferrari-dino-taggliazucchi-chic.html