1990 Ferrari Mondial T Cabriolet

Launched at the 1980 Geneva Auto Salon, the Mondial was the first Ferrari to depart from the company"s familiar three-digit naming scheme and its name was inspired by their famous Mondial sports-racers from the fifties. The Mondial saw Ferrari return to Pininfarina as its choice of styling house, and it was sold as a mid-sized coupé and, eventually, a cabriolet. Conceived as a 'more usable' model, offering the practicality of four seats with the performance of a mid-range Ferrari and hopefully attracting a slightly wider audience than their traditionally more focused two-seaters. The car was not built as a monocoque in a conventional way, but instead, the steel outer body was produced by the famous Italian coachbuilder Carrozzeria Scaglietti, just down the road in nearby Modena and clothed a lightweight steel box-section space frame. The Mondial was the first Ferrari where the entire engine/gearbox/rear suspension assembly was mounted on a detachable steel sub-frame, making engine removal for a major rebuild or cylinder head removal much easier than it had been on earlier models.

Introduced in 1989, the Ferrari Mondial 3.4 T was the 'spearhead for a new generation of V8 Ferraris' and the final version of the Mondial. The 'T' was a reference to the new engine and transmission layout that now saw the engine mounted longitudinally with the gearbox transverse (forming a T), a characteristic of their Formula 1 '312T' which had just won the 1989 World Championship. This set-up would become the standard for all future mid-engined V8 Ferraris beginning with the 348 and continuing through to the 360.

This is a superb original UK, right-hand drive, 3.4-litre, Mondial 'T' Cabriolet supplied to its first owner by HR Owen on the 19th of January, 1990. One thousand and ten Mondial T Cabriolets were built altogether with only 51 in right-hand drive making this example very rare. The odometer currently indicates 14,100 miles, which our vendor believes to be accurate, but the service record sadly has been lost so we are unable to substantiate this, however, there is a lot of additional history with the car. There are consecutive MoT Certificates from February 2008 when the mileage was 11,072 and the car has covered an average of around 500 miles a year since then, so it should be possible to take a view.

The expression “no expense spared” appears to be appropriate and our vendor has lavished much attention on the car since he acquired it on January the 20th, 2015. He immediately sent the car to QV London Ltd. in Windsor and apart from a full service and cam belt change, it looks as though they were asked to deal with every single thing the car needed. They obviously went through the car thoroughly as the invoice for just short of £7,000 suggests. When the Ferrari was as good mechanically as QV could get it, a move to Thames Valley Repairs in Maidenhead was on the agenda and there, over the following months, a further £12,000 was spent on the car's coachwork including a fabulous respray. The original Magnolia interior trim has been restored and the windscreen was replaced at this point (£3,000). Since then the expenditure has continued with a new factory roof being fitted and the front lower valance and sill plates replaced and painted. All the invoices for the above are available for your inspection.

This must be one of the lowest mileage and best-presented Mondials around, and fully serviced, restored and just MoT'd, this cracking cabriolet is ready for Spring. In the world of Movies, the Mondial T Cabriolet was memorably driven by a visually-impaired Al Pacino in the 1992 film, “Scent of a Woman”. With values of these comfortable and approachable Ferraris hardening over recent years, this may be an excellent chance to enjoy top-down Ferrari motoring on a sensible budget.