Rarely do I feel I’m in a position to advise anyone to spend their money, but if you’re fortunate enough to find about Dh1.1 million down the back of the sofa, I’ll stick out my neck and tell you to move heaven and Earth to get yourself a Ferrari 458 Speciale.
That the Speciale is the hard-core variant of one of the greatest drivers’ cars of all time might ordinarily be enough, but, if industry murmurings are correct, this will be the last naturally aspirated V8 Ferrari road car ever. This is the swansong; the final hurrah before turbocharging and engine-capacity downsizing change Ferrari forever. Without getting misty-eyed, this alone will, before long, send values of these things into the stratosphere.
But we’re not here to talk investments. So let’s get down to the nitty-gritty of how this incredible car goes about its business. Before we do so, however, it’s probably worth pointing out that, if the new California T is anything to go by, attaching turbochargers to the next-generation 458 Italia won’t do it a disservice. I’m still to get a chance to drive the blown Cali, but I hear it’s a marked improvement over its flawed gem of a predecessor. However, purists and armchair pundits everywhere will still mourn the death of the original, screaming V8 – and they don’t scream much louder than the Speciale. Whatever comes next will be sullied, diluted and less pure than this.
The more focused V8 Ferraris started way back in 1992 when an extremely limited-edition 348 was sneaked onto the American market, also called the Speciale. From that point on, each V8, mid-engined Ferrari has been given the “more power, less weight” treatment. When the 430 Scuderia launched in 2007, many hacks believed that the company would never make a better car than it. Naturally, Ferrari did, and the 458 Speciale is the most powerful naturally aspirated V8 in the company’s history, generating 605hp at its heady 9,000rpm limit, thanks to some deft engine tweaks. But the story doesn’t end there.
The Speciale is lighter than a normal 458, by 90 kilograms, at 1,395kg. But even with all that extra power and that reduction in mass, the Speciale’s designers and engineers weren’t satisfied – it had to be the nimblest, most agile performer, not simply the most muscular or lightweight. This extra attention to detail hits you square between the eyes from the very instant you take to its controls.
When people wax lyrical about “connecting” with a sports car, it can be difficult to keep a straight face, but drive a Speciale and you know what they mean. You just get it. This is a car with instant, catlike reflexes; one that responds to its driver’s inputs with lightning speed. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what’s missing from most of today’s performance machines. Ferrari’s engineers have dialled out any perceived interference from the Speciale’s mind-boggling computers to make it seem as though your cerebral cortex is hard-wired to the front wheels. It’s nothing short of revelatory – and it’s all there from the off.
Speciale is a most apt moniker, because this car utilises bespoke tyres, has specially developed Brembo brakes and active aerodynamic aids that are the result of Ferrari’s learning with the exclusive FXX programme and the development of the LaFerrari hypercar. But, surprisingly, you don’t have to be reaching the car’s upper limits to experience the benefits of all this tech, because it seeps into every fibre of the Speciale’s being.
You sit snug in an Alcantara-covered bucket seat, with a simple dashboard ahead. The passenger side of the dash features knee pads (which should tell you something) and there’s a substantial fire extinguisher in the passenger footwell. Yes, it’s a barely disguised race car for the road. Everything is to hand; everything is there to serve a purpose. No frippery or unnecessary addenda. Twist the key and press the starter button, and the V8 erupts centimetres behind your head – it’s a living, breathing animal of a car with only one purpose: to give its occupants the best experience four wheels can provide. And it does so time after time. You look for any excuse to drive it, so extensive is its repertoire and so willing is it to put a stupid grin on your face. Need to retrieve something from the bottom of the garden? Want to pop across the road to your neighbour’s house? You’ll end up taking the car if it’s one of these.
The performance is brutal yet exploitable. And while the joys of owning a difficult-to-master supercar cannot be overstated, there’s still something intrinsically satisfying about being able to explore the upper echelons of a car’s performance envelope without learning its foibles over many years. A 458 Speciale is, then, an open book, but one that you’ll never tire of reading.
I’m struggling to think of anything negative to say about this car (it even looks better than the 458 Italia, thanks to a cleaner nose section and other aero aids). Apart from one minor irritation: I doubt I’ll ever own one.
khackett@thenational.ae
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