The 458 Speciale is the fastest, most advanced but also the most fun to drive mid-engined
V8 that Ferrari has ever built, and those are Ferrari's words, not ours. It'll cost
just over £200,000 when it reaches the UK next February and in reality it will be one
of the most exciting road cars there has ever been. Here is a little taste as to why.
The engine in the Speciale is the most potent non-turbo V8 that Ferrari has ever built with
an incredible 14:1 compression ratio and a rev limit of over 9,000.
It thumps out not just more power than the regular 458, in this case a whopping 597bhp
but also more torque right across the entire rev range.
Dial in a 90 kilogram reduction in overall weight plus various other bits of tweakery
to the brakes, the gearbox, the tyres, the aerodynamics and the suspension and what you
end up with is a car that can run rings around the standard 458 Italia on road or track.
And the last time I drove one of those it didn't exactly strike me as being slow.
What does all that feel like out on the road?
The moment you start driving the 458 Speciale on the road all these instant things just
come flying at you which define it as being different and something sharper and superior
even than a regular 458 Italia.
The suspension has been tweaked quite heavily to just be sharper everywhere. The steering
isn't actually that different but because there have been changes to the front suspension
it does feel that much more pinned, that much more precise.
It's very light though. The power assistance is, I don't know, possibly a little bit too
strong given how urgent the rack is. But you can still put the nose of this car just where
you want to in any corner.
But the really big difference is, apart from the SSC system which we'll come to, are the
brakes, the engine and most of all, I think, the gearbox. Upshifts are now 20% faster than
in a normal Italia and downshifts are 44% sharper and that just means on the move it
feels like you think about downshifting and the thing has downshifted almost before you've
made a physical movement at the paddle. It is incredible how fast and how well this thing
changes gear.
The statistics of the engine we've already talked about but what you can't ever experience
until you actually try this thing is just the urgency of response at the peddle to what
you do with your feet. It's incredible. It feels like a proper racing car almost the
way it responds.
There's also more noise, as you can probably hear, inside but not outside. They know full
well that this car is going to be used at track days an awful lot and there's no point
making a track day car that blows all the noise regulations to pieces.
The brakes. Let's talk about the brakes. Basically what you get on this car is the braking system
from LaFerrari. You got different material in the pads, different material in the discs
themselves, much bigger calipers and as a result add in the 90 kilogram weight reduction.
This thing just stops on a six pence it really does.
Outside of a GT3 and I think possibly even including the new GT3, I have barely driven
a road car that stops as well as this one does.
As you can also see you can muck about with the handling of this car, with the chassis
of this car until your heart's content and that is because it's just so nicely balanced.
It's sharp but it's also friendly.
Perhaps the Speciale's best party trick is it's new SSC system, which stands for Side
Slip Control. It's basically a new setting within the manettino system that allows you
to go sideways in the car but with the ESP system still engaged. So it'll save you if
things get too far out of shape.
You can still turn everything off and go completely sideways if that's what turns you on but with
SSC engaged, Ferrari reckons the car is actually faster and more thrilling to drive for most
people than it is with everything switched off.
Here's how that works on the track.
Okay, third gear corner. That is just absolutely amazing. I mean that's an 85-90mph corner
there. Once you've got the car where it needs to be at the apex, that's when the system
really works well for you because then you can just whack the throttle open without fear
of the thing turning around. I mean watch.
That's amazing. I mean that is making me look like some kind of super hero but it's not
me that's doing that. It's allowing me enough throttle to get the back end out but not so
much that you turn the car around. It's amazing.
Hard though it might be to believe, but the Speciale really does make the regular 458
Italia feel like yesterday's car. It's so much faster and more urgent than the standard
car when you're going for it and yet it's almost as civilised if you just want to potter
about in it and that's probably it's greatest trick of all, being epically quick and exciting
but also, I don't know, just so damn easy to drive. There's no fight to be had when
driving this car in other words just pure pleasure. Whatever will they come up with
next?