458 Specs

After months of lurking in this section, I have finally been put into the position that I can definitely go ahead with the order of my 458. I am very, very excited by the whole process!

In 8 days I'll do a factory visit (nice, but I've done that before), and 5 days later I will be at the Atelier at the factory to finalise the specs (have NOT done that before!). Build slot for the car is, as I requested months ago, April/May 2012. I will pick the car up in Italy and drive across the Alps to get to know her - should be an awesome trip!

I think the 458 is such an amazingly good looking car that deciding on specs has not been that easy. But I am pretty sure about what I've selected after all these months. Although being in the Atelier might change things....

Before we go any further, I want to thank everyone that has contributed to making the ordering process a bit more understandable - if you want to order the best 458 you can get, you need Ferrarichat!

So - here's the spec. I was going for classy but racy. I was looking for something subtle but still with impact. I hope some of you agree that I got some things right on this...

Two-tone exterior: Nero Daytona with a medium tone metallic red roof. Current favourite is Rosso Rubinho Mecallizzata, but this still needs to be confirmed.
Exterior options: shields and rosso corsa calipers. 20" sport rims in dark grey/anthracite. Not sure about the centre caps yet, might be CF or black or titanium.
Two-tone interior: Black leater with bordeaux alcantara.

Note: the config pics below show the wrong colours. The configurator is terrible at giving the right impression of your prospective car. The bordeaux, for instance, is much lighter in real life.

Interior: Bright red stitching (just contrasting, not the special stitching). 4 point harnasses.
Carbon fibre driving zone. Carbon fibre dash. CF sill plates. CF steering wheel with LEDs. CF centre console.
Underside of the dash will be bordeaux leather (not on the pics) so that the colour of one door will bleed into the other door.

I will also go for the CF manifold but will not get any other CF options outside the cabin.

Other options are pretty boring, such as iPod interface and such.

All in all, I think there will be few other 458's like it! A fairly unique combination I would hope.


Onno

P.S. Please note that the colours in the config screens are pretty inaccurate!
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Thanks everyone. I'll give an update after I've visited the Atelier and made my final choices!

About to hop in the 550 for two weeks of France and Italy. Boy, do I need this holiday.


Onno

 

Matching calipers sounds interesting, but I can always have them spray-painted later if the Rosso Corsa is bothering me.

Driving to Maranello tomorrow. It's getting close!


Onno

 

Well, what a fabulous day in Maranello today was! I can thoroughly recommend specifying your car at the factory, what luxury (but please note that they only do 2 per day, so only around 500 customers per year....) ! We had the whole assembly line plus cars parked all over the factory to see different options and colours in real life. I had cars moved into the sunshine to assess the colours. Ferrari were really wonderful about the whole process, it was just fantastic.

Consequently, I have made some changes. The overall concept, however, remains the same.

1. Main exterior colour: Nero Stellato. This is a new black that came out for the SA Aperta. It is much darker than Nero Daytona, but it has a sparkly, red/bronze, sheen to it. It looks much more metallic than Nero Daytona in sunshine (which was changed a couple of years ago to have smaller flakes), and it looks less metallic in dark light. It is a very rare colour still, and I was very very fortunate to see a 458 Spider with it just off the assembly line. Unfortunately, I could not take pics there, but seeing it in the flesh convinced me.
2. Roof colour: Rosso Maranello. This is a new triple-layer colour that is a bit more burgundy than Rosso Fuoco, but in bright sunshine it looks like a mid tone red.

So, on a dark day my car will resemble plain black/burgundy, on a bright day metallic black with a reddish sheen and mid-tone metallic red.

3. Calipers: Ferrari will investigate if we can get them in Rosso Maranello. I hope so.
4. Sports exhaust. Brand new option that doesn't cost much more. Gives apparently 15% more noise. Can't be a bad thing!
5. Carbon fibre: you can now get carbon fibre in red (actually in any colour)! It actually looks quite good. But in the end I decided to keep all the carbon fibre trim in standard look because it will give a more sporting image.
6. Wheel inserts: matt carbon fibre with metal horse. They just look fantastic. But the titanium ones were also lovely. Hard choice.
7. All other outside possibility for carbon fibre I declined. I kept the standard plastic grey nose and rear diffuser. With carbon fibre it just completely blended into one with the Nero Stellato.
8. Interior: the same as before with 3 exceptions. a) the little storage space south of the centre tunnel will be covered with bordeaux alcantara, b) underside dashboard will be bordeaux alcantara, and c) pillars will be black alcantara instead of black leather.
9. Options: I chose the luggage for the nose as it is very practical (if very expensive). I disliked the idea of all the stitched 458 Italia logo's and making it bordeaux/nero with red stitching - imagine walking into the hotel with those. So I went for all black where the logo's are just pressed into the leather which makes them barely visible. Also went for the fire extinguisher.
10. I found out that you can't have the high-end stereo with the 4-point harness, so went with the normal stereo.

Everything was rounded off to a lunch at Cavallino where I signed the purchase contract with my Dutch dealer (who had flown in for this), and then the perfect ending when we ran into the great Marcel Massini at the Museo Ferrari for a lovely chat.

Now for the long wait!


Onno

P.S. I'll try to post some pics later.

 

Al - this option is so new that Ferrari itself couldn't tell me much about it. Except that they said it would have not a chromed look but a matt black look. No pics of it, I don't think there's a production car yet that has it. I am almost too early to order it, so I think it will be a while before we see it on a production car.


Onno