F430 Spider vs Gallardo Spider

(I posted this on ********** after I swapped my Gallardo coupe for a spider yesterday. Thought you guys might like to read along too.)

First of all, I love both cars. Neither is OWNING the other on any point. But they are surprisingly different in almost every sense short of performance. Here's a brief rundown of my experience contrasting the two cars.

Eye-popping looks: Naturally, this is subjective, but gauging from public opinion, the Lambo definitely has the upper hand. In shear numbers, I've gotten significantly more positive feedback on the Lambo. But as a single triumph for the Ferrari, I had a mighty hot girl give me a "your car is alright, but you're really cute" compliment at a stop-light two days ago. I should have been single with these cars! Anyway, score Lambo.

F1 vs E.gear: At city-speeds and bumper-to-bumper, the e.gear is a big disappointment. It's incredibly rough shifting back and forth between 1st and 2nd. The F1 on the Ferrari is night and day difference. Super smooth at all speeds. Once you get out of the city and on to the open road, the difference is negligible, though. So it's a score Ferrari, but it doesn't matter THAT much. If you're feeling the pain, you're not driving fast enough

Exhaust note: The F430 is being paraded as the greatest exhaust note ever among a good number of journos, but they obviously haven't had to live with it and didn't run it back to back with a 06+ Gallardo. It's not that the F430 sounds bad, far from it, but it's very unpredictable. Unlike the Gallardo, you can't go stealth by staying under 4K rpm. The F430 is seriously loud at any RPM. And starting the motor in a confined parking space does get kind of old pretty quickly. It's just a tad too much. The 06+ Gallardo exhaust is AWESOME though. It's incredibly civilized at under 4k RPM and it has so much freaking character above that. Gurgles, bubbles, back-fires, the whole nine yards. Big score Lambo.

Steering: This is the only big Ferrari envy I have when I'm riding in the Lambo. Even though the new Gallardo Spyder feels slightly lighter than the coupe, it's still nowhere close to the perfect feel of the Ferrari. It really is fantastically good. So direct, so perfectly weighted, at any speeds. Just like with the gearing, though, the difference shrinks the faster you go. At 80 MPH+ on a highway, you don't notice the difference. But on 40-80 MPH back roads with twists and turns, you very much do. Big score Ferrari.

Value: F430 Spiders are still going for ridiculous prices. The going rate is ~$300K. Compare to most Gallardo Spiders at ~$230K. That's a $70K saving! Enough to add a RS4 daily driver to the stable as well. And considering how close these cars are, it really does make the Ferrari look like poor value-for-money. Of course at these prices, you could say that many buyers might not care. But I certainly do. Paying 230 for the Lambo feels a lot better than 300 for the Ferrari. Big score Lambo.

Ride comfort: The Gallardo spyder seats feel a little better than the coupe, but they're still way too stiff for my taste. They develop a "it'd be nice to get out now" feeling in less than two hours. On the other hand, I just did a 8-hour in the Ferrari last weekend and didn't feel any discomfort at all. Add to the stiff seats that the Lambo has a stiff ride and it does get a bit old. You learn to live with it, but jumping back and forth between the two cars highlights the difference. Score Ferrari.

Performance: As tons/bhp figures reveal, these cars are incredibly close. The Lambo feels a tad faster in the low end and the Ferrari a tad faster on the high end of the rev band. But the Lambo power is more accessible. Especially during turning. I feel a lot more comfortable pushing the Lambo in high-speed turns. And for all the press the maritino has received, the default traction control in the Lambo beats Sport mode in the Ferrari. Just enough slippage to get you excited, not enough to get you in serious trouble. Sport mode in the Ferrari is a little too restrictive and Race mode is just too wild for the road (IMO). So tie in terms of raw power, score Lambo in terms of accessibility.

Wind tunneling: I don't just like convertibles, I LOVE convertibles. And living in Chicago that means you have to get your gloves on and sweater wrapped tight if you want to get the car out as often as possible. I usually set my limit at 38-40 degrees. That's pretty chilly at 80MPH, even with the windows up and the heat cranked to the top. What I've found, though, is that the wind tunneling matters a ton. In the Ferrari, very little draft comes in. The windows wrap very closely to the back of the cars and the rollbars sit high. In the Lambo, there's more of a gap, which creates significant draft at high speeds. So even though the Lambo has heated seats, it's still not as good a cold-rider. Score Ferrari.

Drama and occassion: In some ways the Ferrari is a little too good. The gearing is so smooth, the ride so supple, and the looks so generally pleasing that it does take a little of the exotic element out of it. Yes, there's a prancing horse at the back, but still. The Lambo, on the other hand, oozes exotica. It's real loud and mean when you push it. It's bordering uncomfortable at time in a way that makes you pay pain for pleasure. It's way more exotic looking. Especially in yellow with yellow inserts . So big score Lambo in that department.

Practicality: If you thought the Lambo coupe had puny storage, you'll have a laugh at what the spider offers. No room behind the seats, even smaller boot. If you have two passengers, you won't fit much more than a tooth brush. The Ferrari, on the other hand, has generous room behind the seats and a huge boot as well. You could easily fit a weeks worth or more of clothe and traveling gear in there. Lots of people of course couldn't care less as the car is not meant for transportation, but. Anyway, score Ferrari.

Overall, these are both great cars. The Gallardo Spyder would be a hands-down winner if it could just steal the steering feel and the ride comfort from the Ferrari. I would think that would be easier than building up drama and looks the other way over. Until that happens, though, I'll be happy to drive both.


Disclosure: I'm not an exotic veteran. I only got my driver's license 2.5 years ago (lived in Denmark where we have 205% car tax = no fun cars around = why bother with a license). And the experiences above are based on 1700 miles in the Ferrari and 3100 miles in the Lambos. So add a forkload of salt to my perspective. I do absolutely love these cars. Only got into the exotic game 5 months ago and the Spider is thus the 3rd exotic car and close to 5000 miles done in that period.

 

A short note on depreciation with Lambos: It's way overstated. Gallardo Spyders especially are holding their own. You don't see a lot of dipping below 220-230 for a used e.gear car. Which is basically MSRP.

Even coupes are doing pretty alright. I traded in a 6-month old coupe with 3k miles and lost ~20k. If you bought a F430 coupe a year ago at 50k over, you'd easily loose 20k just by the fact that you can get them at 30k over now. And that's not factoring in what the dealer wants for handling the deal.

People look at these 04 Gallardos going for ~130 and think someone bleed 70k trading that in. Not so. Most of these machines got bought at 150-160 when the car was hard to move in the beginning.

There's definitely still money to be lost buying and selling Lambos. Like most cars. And there's no bonus for being in an old boy's club like with the Ferraris.

But I consider that a feature, not a bug. I HATED paying over sticker for my Ferrari. And I HATE the notion that someone else got it at sticker. The Lambo market is a lot less about being smoochy with the dealer.

There's no denying that the Ferrari market "works" for a select few who either have the patience to wait years and years on a car or are pals with the dealer. For anyone looking at a first-time buy, though, the experience sucks.

That's not a rant on Ferrari the car, but on Ferrari the buying process. I love the former, despise the latter (even though I respect the market forces that makes it so).

In any case, this is off-topic for comparing the two as driving machines (as was my original inclusion of a price discussion)

 

A few pictures of the Lambo car...
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