Pop quiz: What do Emerson Fittipaldi, Mario Andretti, and Nigel Mansel have in common? The three gentlemen are the only drivers to have won the American CART Championship and the Formula 1 World Championship. Today, they are considered global legends, and their old race cars command extraordinary prices. One such car is Ferrari 640 that Mansell campaigned during 1989. It was a groundbreaking design in many ways, and it remains as it was when it completed its last race. It is part of the man’s personal collection and is listed for auction here at RM Sotheby’s. It is scheduled to go under the hammer on May 14th in Monaco, and the auction estimate is that it could easily top £2,000,000.

The Ferrari 640 was the work of designer John Barnard. He had joined the team as Technical Director in 1986, but the 640 was the first car where he retained complete control over every aspect of its design. Barnard was held in such high regard that Enzo Ferrari broke one of his iron-clad rules. Design staff were always obliged to conduct their work at Ferrari’s Maranello factory. However, Barnard had his design facility in England, so Ferrari allowed him to work remotely. The car that he and his team produced was elegant in design. It featured a sharp and aerodynamically efficient nose, while the openings in the sidepods that supplied cooling air were the smallest of any manufacturer within that year’s Formula 1 field. The chassis is constructed of a carbon fiber/kevlar composite, as are the panels and wings. The car was an immediate success, winning on debut with Mansell behind the wheel in Brazil. But for some early reliability issues, it is possible that the car could have brought the British driver his long-desired first championship. Our feature car has only been driven by Mansell, who utilized it in ten of the sixteen races that comprised the season. It scored two wins, a further two podiums, but five DNFs and a disqualification sealed Mansell’s fate to finish fourth in that year’s championship. The car is as it completed in its final race at Adelaide in Australia. It still presents superbly, with its iconic red paint shining beautifully. The sponsor decals and signage are crisp and clean, and when you look at the overall presentation, it is hard to believe that we are looking at an unrestored race car that is more than thirty years old. As an interesting aside, Enzo Ferrari courted Mansell from Williams and signed a contract in 1988 because he saw the British driver as their best chance of securing the title that he eluded them since Jody Scheckter’s successful 1979 campaign. Mansell holds the distinction of being the last driver hired by Enzo before he passed away in August 1988.

The 1989 season brought enormous rule changes to Formula 1 as the category’s administrators sought to reign in spiraling engine power and mechanical configurations that were difficult to police. Renault pioneered the 1.5-liter turbocharged engine era in 1977, and by the mid-1980s, every team had a turbo engine bolted to the back of their car. Every championship since 1983 had fallen to those motors, but the FIA instituted massive changes for 1989. Turbos were banned, and, in their place, engines had to be normally-aspirated units with a capacity no greater than 3.5-liters. Most manufacturers followed the V8 or V10 route, but as was another of Enzo Ferrari’s unbreakable rules, the 640 was powered by the Tipo 035/5 V12 that produced 660hp by the end of the 1989 season. This figure proved close to those produced by the banned turbo units, indicating the development speed. Such was the potency of these engines that revved to 18,000rpm that Ferrari claimed if you removed the cylinder heads and rotated the engine at that speed, were a conrod to break on the upstroke, the piston would reach a height of one mile before it would begin the descent. However, it wasn’t the engine that proved to be the 640’s groundbreaking feature, but the transmission to which it was bolted. The company had been working on a semi-automatic sequential paddle-shift transmission for more than two years but had trouble integrating it with the 1.5-liter turbo V6 from the previous year. The more linear power delivery of the V12 better suited the revolutionary design, and it found its way into the 640 from Day 1. While it won on debut, it suffered further teething problems. In-depth investigation revealed that an inadequate electrical supply caused these, and with this addressed, reliability improved. So successful was the design that almost every remaining team had developed a system within twelve months, and the design remains fundamentally unchanged to this day. This Ferrari remains as it finished its final race and has been on display in Mansell’s collection ever since. It isn’t in a driving state and will require specialist attention to achieve that. The process is unlikely to be cheap, but the chance of slipping behind the wheel of a car like this makes it worth the cost. It would for me, anyway!

Nigel Mansell, Emerson Fittipaldi, and Mario Andretti shared several achievements. As well as dual championship winners, they each drove for the iconic Lotus F1 team at some point in their careers. While Fittipaldi and Andretti steered cars from that manufacturer to ultimate success, Mansell had to wait until he returned from Ferrari to Williams to secure the World Championship. He managed to win the F1 Championship in 1992, backing that achievement by scoring the CART Championship the following year. This placed him in a unique position where, for a short time, he held both titles simultaneously. It is unlikely that anyone will achieve the same feat in the future. Owning one of his race cars, particularly one from the stable of the Prancing Horse, doesn’t happen every day. If you had a spare couple of million kicking about, would you be tempted to bid on this classic?