488 GTO ?

I'm not sure I buy this. I've bought nearly every v8 offered in the last 10 years except the 458S which I turned down as I was happy with my 458. I have the 488 and am trading it in on my 488 spider in the next week or so when it arrives. At 45yo I would be surprised if I can't get a 488 speciale but I guess we will see. Usually the speciale A version is the tough one to get. I always assumed being young hurt me at getting limited cars (as I have only a ten year history with Ferrari and lots of folks have 20 or 30) but maybe not. Lol

 

My original comments were from a Ferrari presentation clarifying how they allocate limited edition cars. After that, my point was that as we are seeing new models sold out as in the case of the 812 (Is this truly reality for a 5 year production cycle?) - maybe this will come into play for models where strong interest is showing. Ferrari is clearly more loyal to those that keep multiple cars and interact more with the Ferrari "family". I'm sure availability will also be a function of the market you're in. I was told that for the speciale version of the 488 "priority" would go to those with the previous version. True or not time will tell.

 

Exactly what I have been told and with interest already "through the roof" on the 488 VS not owning a 488 will limit ones chance. I have been told though that a new purchase is better than secondhand

 

There are no laws broken by choosing who you supply your product to. You can use whatever criteria you like. (True, I'm talking about Europe but I don't believe our discrimination laws are weak - I would guess they are the strongest in the world).

In fact the law works the other way I believe; there are very strong protections against 'restraint of trade'. This means no-one can tell you who, or who not to sell to, at what price, when and how many. Notable exceptions being for weapons, drugs and certain services. Plus, artificially conspiring with competitors to disadvantage customers (usually on supply and pricing) is also illegal. Basically everything else is allowed and these are exceptions to the core principle.

Active discrimination is illegal and this tends mainly to affect employment - this is because you are not allowed to 'restrain' an employees trade, i.e. selling themselves so-to-speak. An example of this is that we can no longer force people to retire at retirement age, we must prove that they are no longer able or prepared to physically or mentally do their job - performance management. As such we have had many people well into their seventies and beyond still work for our company. This is not usually an issue but sometimes performance does suffer and we are not usually happy to put a valued older employee through performance management. It is also an issue for the career of those below.

Another, perhaps even more contentious piece of evidence that age discrimination is completely legal in terms of who you provide your services to is that the UK government (still subject to the ECJ and EU human rights legislation) does it every day. In the UK we have our famous NHS, which decides who to provide certain expensive drugs to based on age - if you're very old you will not get it in preference to a much younger person. Harsh, very harsh, but how else is fairer?

 

As for the 488 VS, I've also been told that you need to have owned a Speciale and a 488. I seem to recall that there might be a different strategy for the 488VS - more limited - but I could be wrong.

 

I have checked this out.
There will be criteria for allocation of 488 VS but in UK Ferrari NE have not even thought about what they are.
Any criteria being communicated now are supposition on dealer's part.
Not saying they are wrong and 488 ownership cannot do any harm.

 

So McLaren 720 is out, Lamborghini Huracan Performante is out and now the 911 GT2 RS is out

ok Ferrari, your move.......lets see some signs of the 488 GTO!!

 

Frankfurt

 

Do you have real insider knowledge on this? my bet would have been Geneva (i.e. 5-6 months later).

 

As far as I know Frankfurt is for the new California. Perhaps they will also show something in Hockenheim on July 1 but no idea if that could be the 488 special series...Geneva feels too far away given all other competitors are out now

 

I'm hoping they get the 488 GTO out while Kimi is still an Scuderia Ferrari driver. They put Seb in the LaFerrari Aperta launch video so they need to put Kimi in a bad ass 488 GTO launch video, it would match his personality.

Pretty cool when you think of it. Kimi's 2nd part at Ferrari was during the 458 Speciale, Laferrari, F12 tdf and hopefully the 488 GTO era........one hell of an era in the modern Ferrari era

 

Potential GTO
https://youtu.be/L_qUDT8EuHw

 

https://www.motor1.com/news/149410/ferrari-488-spied-nurburgring/

 

Exactly what I understand we should expect, a mild hybrid Speciale. Apparently wonderful looking.

 

I was hoping for a twin turbo V8 without KERS.

 

Wouldn’t it make more sense to launch hybridization in combination with an all-new platform rather than one which is basically around since 2009?

 

FYI some dealers are already taking orders for the 488 GTO Aperta. I placed my order for one last Monday. At this point I'm not sure if we are talking about a full soft top convertible or some kind of variant like the 488 spider which i already own.

 

Of course, it would make sense. And I'm sure this is what Ferrari will do, no KERS in combination with the current 488 platform. I dare to say the current 3.9l engine has enough reserves for a significant performance jump.

I've once read that the all new California will be the first model which will get a new generation hybrid drive unit, KERS in combination with a new 3 liter V6 biturbo (derived from the Alfa Romeo Giulia engine).

 

When you say you placed your order, do you mean you are on the interest list, or you have a confirmed allocation? It seems kind of unrealistic for a dealer to already give an allocation for a car that isn't even confirmed yet.

 

On the list with a deposit.......Ferrari decides how many each dealer is going to get and which owners on each dealers list get the car.

 

That's what I thought, so thank you for clarifying!

 

In the Cali section some members have stressed that the new Cali will remain V8. But I agree that V8 Turbo + KERS might be over the top for such a kind of car.

The more interesting question to me is whether we will see a V8 Turbo + KERS in the 488 successor or if there is any chance for a NA V8 + KERS.

 

Same as asking for the good old days of F1 to come back and have teams make V8s and V12s again: not going to happen, mainly for noise, fuel consumption and CO2 emissions (in F1 according to FIA's president Jean Todt himself, ruling them out for good). In terms of Ferrari, I'd say European environmental rules prevent the return of the naturally aspirated engine (in a way that makes financial and commercial sense to manufacturers) in any shape or form. And even if one doesn't consider Europe as Ferrari's main market, I'm sure it still plays a huge rule when thinking about launching a new car to the global market.

I for one would welcome an absolutely mental twin-turbocharged + KERS 488, and if they brought back the GTB name, they should imho be consistent and resurect another iconic name and call it GTO. If there ever was a time to resurect the GTO name, it's now. The 488's performance is already out of this world. The more mental they make the 488 GTO, the better. No compromise. I want it to blow my mind. Really. As most of you know, I'm not into the 488 and I am head over feet over the 458. I will always love the 458 over the 488 no matter what, but I want this new 488 to be a game changer and I want to want one. I want to fall in love with a 488, lose my mind, spend sleepless nights, sell my other cars and a kidney and have a 488 GTO in my garage. But Ferrari needs to get it spot on, which actually isn't that difficult once the 488's performance is not of this world. Hope they don't give in to environmental politics or emerging markets' needs alone, nor that they end up "ruining it" by grossly mass producing it.

Kind regards,

Nuno.

 

the 488 GTO won't have Kers. Forgive me for playing an armchair engineer BUT The 458/488 chassis was not designed to have hybrid/KERS systems. They would have to alter the chassis to make it all fit and when you do that comes...........a whole new crash test forced by the SAE.

When Dodge came out with the Hellcat Challenger and Charger people were complaining that the Charger only can in Automatic yet the Challenger came as both. When the engineers of the Hellcat twins were ask why, they simply stated that the Charger chassis(which is actually a Mercedes chassis) was never designed to have a manual transmission so they would have to alter the transmission tunnel which would require a whole new crash by SAE. Simply put, it wasn't worth it for such a low production car.......like the 488 GTO will be.

I wouldn't be surprised if Ferrari is in fact testing KERS on a gutted up 488 mule for the next generation mid engine V8 Ferrari.

Anyways, the 488 GTO will be sheer madness. Its going right for the throat of the Huracan Performante. 911 GT2 RS and even the new C7 ZR1. i predict it will match of even slightly surpass the LaFerrari on the track, just like the 430 Scuderia did to the Ferrari Enzo.

 

Will be interesting to see if the GTO will outperform the 720S. The bar has been raised very high.