"If God was a machine, it would definitely be an F40"
- Enzo Ferrari *
The best Ferrari's were always built with a particular purpose. The F40 was designed for speed and performance, a car specifically engineered to beat the Porsche 959. This meant that it that it would need to become the first production car to reach the mythical 200 mph mark - not to mention the, at the time unheard of, 0-62 mph time of 4.1s. To achieve its purpose, a 2.9L twin-turbo V8 putting out close to 500 hp was mounted in the back and extensive use of carbon, kevlar and magnesium made it race car light. It also probably didn't hurt that the expression "true Ferrari" was commonly thrown around by the team that developed the F40.
It was also, from the very beginning, the last Ferrari to have Enzo's touch. Both him and the team knew at the time that this would be the last Ferrari that "Il Commendatore" would ever personally sign off on.
No wonder then, that it turned out to be a "true Ferrari".
* - or at least sure sounds like something Enzo Ferrari would have said.