Top Car

32 TOPCAR.CO.ZA|January 2016

FIRST DRIVES.

Ferrari488 Spider

>Price(est) R4.8million>Engine3 902cc 32v twin-

turbo V8, 49 2kW @ 80 00rpm, 760Nm @ 30 00rpm

>TransmissionSeven-speed dual-clutch, rear-

wheeldrive>Performance3.0sec0-100kph,

32 7kph, 11.4ℓ/100km, 260g/km CO 2 >Weight1 525kg

>On saleNow

FERRARI 488SPIDER

Special, if not

actually Speciale

There’s no elep hant in the room, but there is a 458 –

and the topl ess 488 can’t ignore it. ByMarkWalton

T

HE NEWFERRARI488 Spider

eases itself in to gigantic, monstrous

speed like a greased frog slipping

into a ba th of warm milk. No

splosh, no drama,just a sudden flash of

slithery movement, and with a deep croak

you’re gone, up the ro ad, disapp eared. All it

takes is a flex of your right foot, and the

response is instant and overwhel ming; a

tsunami of to rque scoops you forwards in an

irresistible lunge. You sense the effortless

nature of it, the lack of resistance, as though

the weight of the car, the buffeting air, the

raw physics of it all are casu ally swept aside

by this titanic engine.

Compared to this slipperiness, the

outgoing 458 Speciale was like riding a wasp

through the gas cloud of an erupting

volcano. The new 488 is a very different car.

Ach! Tsk tsk Mark! Ferrari will be mad

with you for making that co mparison! ‘This

is not the new Speciale,’ they kept saying on

the Spider launch, held about 130km south

of Maranello. And they’re right, of course:

this is n’t a hardcore, stripped -backrace r-for-

the- road, this is the Spider, the Hollywood

Hills Ferrari, the FrenchRiviera cruiser. In

most territories it will account for morethan

half of 488s sold, and since the arrival of the

folding hardtop

(introduced in the 458

and continued in the new

car) it’s beenfast gaining

popularity. And you can see why – it weighs

only 50kg morethan the 488 GTB, it has the

same engine, the same 0-100kph time of 3.0

seconds, the same suspension, the same

aluminiumchassis... butif the sun shines

you can drop the ro of in 14 seconds. Spiders,

Ferrari tells us, are driven further than

coupes, on average, and Spider drivers are

morelikely to have their partners alongside

for the trip. Usable and civilised, and

nothing like the Speciale at all.

But hard luck Ferrari, beca use I’m going to

continue making the 458 comparison, for

three reasons. Firs t, beca use the Speciale

was the last Ferrari I drove, so I can’t help

myself; second, when I wrote that story I

described it as ‘P eak Ferrari’, saying no car

would ever match it, ever, from now to the

end of time – a bold statement I feel I need to

refer to. And finally, beca use the Speciale

was – as every enthusiast knows – the final

iteration of the normally aspira ted V8, and

the 488 Spider is a turbo. So is it better or

worse?

Well, as I say, there’s no escaping, it is

different. Before I drove the new Spider,

Ferrari gave us a technical briefing with a

slideshow, and when you see the power and

torque of this 3.9-litr e turbo overlaid above

the 458’s 4.5-litr e V8, it really hits home. The

lines on the graph were like spaghetti – not

just beca use peak power is up from 419kW

to 492kW, and torque is up from 540Nm to a

whopping 760Nm, it’s also the way it

delivers. Ferrari has gone to great lengths to

eliminate lag in the 488, using fancy

bearings and titanium alloys in the

turbocharger. So peak torque – and I mean

Bentley-style gobfuls of the stuff – is

available from just 3000rpm. No wonder it

takes off like a wet amphib ian. And just as

the engine characteristics are so different,

that in turn changes the way you drive.

All you 458 owners out

there will feel ri ght at home.

Manettinodial remainsthe

key to thekingdom

What about those side

scoops, do you like them?

We had reservations, but

they work in th e flesh

UPAGAINST

BETTERTHAN

Ferrari 488 GTB

Drop-top Spideris best ofbothworlds

WORSE THAN

Ferrari458 Speciale

Lag isn’t the issue, high-rev thrills are

WE’D BUY

Ferrari 488 Spider

The458 is gone...

deal withit