In 2024, a Japanese car collector took the phrase “Cars are meant to be driven” to the extreme by taking his $3 million Ferrari F40 on a camping trip to a secluded forest.
Takeshi Kimura is a Japanese native, known for his insane car collection. Among it is his beloved Ferrari F40, which instead of treating the icon like a museum piece, he strapped a tent and camping gear to the roof and drove across gravel trails and rivers.
Over the 40-year history of the F40, it has become an icon of icons and is considered the greatest supercar ever made.
The 2.9 litre, twin turbocharged V8 was personally developed by Nicola Materazzi, who was hired by Enzo Ferrari to manage the technical department of the racing division, responsible for not just the F40 but also the 288 GTO.
Materazzi modified the powerplant of his 288 GTO, coming as a larger, more powerful variant. But because the creation was so powerful, Materazzi had to go to Pirelli to custom build tires that could withstand the power it output.
This was when the Pirelli P-Zero, a Formula 1 inspired tire was born.
But in 2014, the car went viral during the early days of social media, for a different reason that it’s performance accolades, it went on a camping trip.
It was one of the first exhibits of people questioning whether AI was involved in the generation of the images – it was in fact, not.
Takeshi Kimura’s Ferrari F40 really did take to the Japanese mountains on an off-road camping trip. His car has seen mud, rain and dirt roads that most collectors wouldn’t dream of, he even cooked eggs on the exhaust after dirt drifting sessions.
The stunt earned him global respect from collectors who praised him for keeping the Ferrari’s raw spirit alive by actually using the F40 how Enzo initially intended: To drive it on the open road, no matter where it takes you.
