Ferrari · The Eighties

The dossiers

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  308 GTB, GTS and QV — about 12,150 built; fibreglass versus steel body (about 150kg lighter, 712 to 808 cars by different counts); QV four-valve head as the driver's choice; cam belt as the non-negotiable maintenance item

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  328 GTB and GTS — 1,344 GTBs against 6,068 GTSs; the natural conclusion of the V8's development; the gap to Testarossa money wider than the engineering justifies

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  Mondial — the practical Ferrari; Mondial t Cabriolet is the collector variant; values at persistent discount to 308/328 despite comparable mechanical content

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  Testarossa, 512 TR and F512 M — ~7,177 Testarossas; the single-mirror specification commands a premium; US-spec emission cars trade at a discount to European equivalents

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  288 GTO — 272 built for Group B homologation never contested; the GTO name, the F40 technical connection, and the institutional buyer market that sets prices

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  F40 — about 1,315 produced; 478 PS, a claimed 201mph, no radio; Enzo's valediction and the fastest series-production car of its day; originality is the condition of premium value

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  348: the bridge — the troubled successor that defines the 328's scarcity premium; Spider variant is the exception and the open-car buying case

The era

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  Ferrari's commercial crisis and the 308's solution: the decade that opened with insufficient margins and closed with the most significant road car of the generation

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  Enzo Ferrari's final decade: the dual agenda of commercial volume (Testarossa) and engineering ambition (F40) that produced the decade's most collected cars

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  Formula 1, turbos and the road-car connection: the 126C's turbo technology in the 288 GTO and F40, and how the racing programme shaped the road-car engineering brief

Buying & ownership

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  Ferrari Classiche certification: what it proves, what it costs, and the auction premium it generates — the most important document for any Ferrari above £100,000

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  308/328 cam belt service: the single maintenance item that makes a documented car worth materially more than an undocumented one, and what the replacement covers

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  F40 originality criteria: IHI turbochargers, composite body integrity, original paint and colour — the items that separate a premium car from a discounted one

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  Cross-marque comparisons: 308 against the Porsche 911 SC, Testarossa against the Lamborghini Countach, F40 against the Porsche 959 — the arguments and their limits