I’ve always been fascinated by Ferrari supercars. Growing up, my bedroom walls were plastered with pictures of the fabled F40, the 308 GTB and the Testarossa. Up until recently, I never thought I’d ever get to drive a Ferrari, but just two days after testing my first, the California, I was invited as one of only two South African journalists to drive the Ferrari 458 Spider at the international launch in Italy. I don’t think anything comes close to driving a Ferrari in its natural habitat so I treated this trip as a pilgrimage. For starters, not only would I be driving a Ferrari on some of Italy’s most picturesque and winding roads, the route would take me just 100km away from Genoa – the city of my forefathers. The morning after arriving at the hotel in Reggio Emilia, an affluent city in Northern Italy, I was woken up by a choir of 458 Spiders warming up their mechanical voice boxes in the hotel’s courtyard. I skipped breakfast and bolted down to the courtyard to catch a glimpse of the action and pick my car for the day. The test route took the form of an epic 350km round trip through the meandering roads of the Apennine Mountains and down to the Mediterranean city of La Spezia on the Ligurian coast – a proper way of determining the 458 Spider’s pedigree. The 458 Spider is the world’s first mid-engined Berlinetta with a retractable hardtop roof, choosing to eschew the traditional fabric roof configuration made famous by the 360 Spider and F430 Spider. The reason for this departure is quite simple – the two-piece aluminium roof is 25kg lighter than the fabric alternative and takes only 14 seconds to fold away. The structural augmentation of the Spider’s design has only one shortcoming – the engine is no longer visible. Ferrari’s engineers have done well to retain the natural form of the 458 Italia with the only design changes coming in the form of two flying buttresses and an aluminium tonneau cover that replaces the engine display glass. These buttresses function not only as roll bars but optimise air travel to the engine intakes, clutch and gearbox oil radiators. Ferrari claims the structural integrity of the chassis is as strong as the 458 Italia and it certainly felt that way. No matter how hard I tucked the Spider into the sinuous roads of the Italian countryside I never experienced any scuttle shake, and body roll was hardly noticeable thanks to the multi-link suspension arrangement.
The only issue I experienced was an annoying blind spot created by the buttresses – a nightmare when trying to change lanes. As a whole, the 458 Spider is just as pretty as its coupé sibling, perhaps a little prettier, but one thing it does for sure is turn heads – including that of the authorities. Just six kilometres into the test drive and the carabinieri forced my driving partner and me to pull over on the side of the road. It turned out that they merely wanted to admire the svelte lines of the 458 Spider but it was an unnerving experience nonetheless, particularly after forgetting my licence back at the hotel. The engine soundtrack is a harbinger of the power that lurks in the rear – 425kW and 540Nm to be precise. The vibrations from the boisterous 4.5-litre V8 travel up and down your spine with every push of the throttle as if you’re plugged into the car’s intricate circuitry. Driving through the narrow streets of the surrounding villages brought out the best of the engine acoustics. The hard-edged rasp of the engine penetrated the surrounding architecture and reverberated off the walls with such accuracy that it returned a sonar-like image of the town. As we approached the first stretch of Autostrada coming into La Spezia I spotted the first of many tunnels; could this trip really get any better? My throttle inputs naturally became more aggressive as I prepared myself for aural Nirvana. The echo of the free-revving V8 in the tunnels was incredible and drowned out everything in its path including several 18-wheelers while the odd-downshift and burble on the overrun was also very entertaining. No matter your driving skill, the Spider makes you feel like a seasoned professional, even when you’re at your most vulnerable. The feeling you get from driving the 458 Spider is one of telepathy, almost as if the car knows what you’re going to do next. Handling is sublime and no matter your steering input the car is agile enough to respond to every flick of the steering wheel. The manettino dial – marked Wet, Sport, Race, CT Off and ESC Off – gives you complete control over how the car reacts and lets you misbehave a little if you’ve selected an advanced mode. The MSC damper button changes the suspension characteristics of the car no matter which mode you’ve selected. Put to the test it sucked up most of the bumps and ruts the countryside’s pockmarked surfaces threw at it. Race mode supplies a generous amount of power, gear response and play but ‘CT Off’ is the most enthralling and challenging mode. It allows for a bit of wheel slippage when accelerating out of a corner sending the rear squirreling for a moment before the 20-inch wheels regain traction.
What’s the cabin like? Well there’s plenty of room, enough in fact, to consume a 1.95m adult and there’s space behind the seats for a some luggage. The interior can be shaped according to your taste – I liked the sport bucket seats with carbon-fibre fascia accents and cuoio leather. The F1-style shift light on the summit of the steering wheel is also a nifty option particularly if you’re after a pseudo-Formula 1 experience. The route back to the hotel gave me an opportunity to test just how quickly the Spider can reach the horizon line. The seven-speed F1-derived dual-clutch transmission is a thing of precision – it sends optimal power to the rear wheels with help from the E-Diff. Select manual mode and the column-mounted paddle shifters come into play. The response is rapid with the gear changes forcing the exhaust to crackle in appreciation as the rev needle slingshots to 9000rpm. Despite weighing 50kg more than the Coupé the Spider can complete the 0 to 100km dash in just 3.4 seconds and hit 200km/h in 10.8 seconds. Mid-range torque is phenomenal with over 80 per cent of the torque accessible from as low down as 3200rpm. The generous lumps of torque mean that even cosseting the throttle – in any gear – will result in your head smacking the headrest. The Spider can reach a top speed of 320km/h – quite believable given the rate at which it accelerates. Balls to the wall and your peripheral vision becomes blurry. At some point I looked down at the speedo binnacle to find myself travelling at 250km/h-plus, yet at no point did I feel uncomfortable or lose faith in the car’s stability. Thirty kilometres from the hotel and we hit peak hour traffic. I selected automatic, placed the manettino in sport and let the car do its thing. The throttle mapping became more accommodating and the gear changes more civilised showing just how drivable it actually is. How does it compare to other Ferraris? Well, having recently driven the California I can vouch that the 458 Spider is a far more personal and driver-focused car. In fact, it’s very difficult to find any negatives about it. Compared to the hundreds of cars I’ve driven this year the level of driver involvement and the sensory experience that accompanies it is unmatched. It’s number one on my all-time list and will stay there – I’m sure – for a very long time. The 458 Spider will go down as one of the greatest Cavallino Rampante’s ever made and will undoubtedly become the poster car of choice for car enthusiasts the world over.
SPECIFICATIONS
Price: €226 800
Engine: 4.5-litre V8
Power: 425kW and 540Nm
0-100km/h: 3.4 seconds
0-200km/h: 10.8 seconds
Top speed: 320km/h
Launch drive video:
Aaron Borrill
