458 Official Ferrari 458 Italia Picture Thread

From the Ferrari factory last Friday. Sorry about the poor quality, the picture is shot by a mobile phone..)
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Yes, not as pretty as the pearl yellow perhaps, but a whole lot more practical.

 

Yellow is a fantastic color for the 458

 

I'm noticing that the optional wheels are much more common in these street spots than the standard wheels. I'm predicting at least 80% of buyers will pay the extra for the slim spoke variety.

 

NEW PHOTOS
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The 458 is looking stunning on the front of Top Gear Magazine... BUT DO NOT BUY THIS MAGAZINE! Resist with every fiber of your being. This is a big cynical con. What do you expect when you see a cover like that? Probably the same as I expected: JC power sliding the 458 and giving us his unique view and potentially the definitive road test. Well, you're out of luck! What you get is a very thin road test by some staffer (less than half a page of words) that tells us nothing we don't already know and then JC taking two pages (again, about half a page of words) to tell us that the weather was too bad for anything other than one quick spin at no more than 37mph! This is a blatant case of cynically fooling your readers. A cover deliberately designed to mislead your readers into thinking you're going to give the 458 a good seeing to when you know what you have is paper thin. Disgruntled!

Yet another sign of the slow decline of Top Gear as they rush headlong after profit...
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Ouch. Well that is certainly a sad state of affairs!

If you didn't see all the colors presented here you would think Ferrari only builds red cars based on what they give the journalists to drive...
CH

 

Thanks for the warning! A few years ago CAR magazine, which was my favorite at the time, had "The new M3 revealed!" with a big picture of the new M3 on the cover. The magazine was plastic wrapped so you couldn't check it out in advance. I was at Heathrow, bought it, saved it until I got on the plane, and opened it like a kid on Christmas. Turns out it was a photoshop and all speculation. I felt utterly betrayed and like a scorned woman I have never gone back to CAR again.

The upside is that I discovered EVO magazine and they've never lied to me and always treated me well. While Top Gear is probably my favorite show on TV, I don't trust their magazine. EVO is hands down the best automotive publication available.

 

Well if no one wants to check the top gear one out. Car and Driver did a review of the 458 a couple of months back, it wasn't as good as their "comparos" but at least the pictures were good DD.

 

Where was this picture taken?

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Gr. Martin

 

CAR used to be a must read for me, but I too have drifted over to evo.

 

Mille Miglia Motors, Ferrari Dealer near Munich (Starnberg) in front of the Shop.

 

Those standard wheels looks nice!
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Yes, the standard wheels suit the classic lines of the car. The optional wheels look a bit 'pimp my ride'.

 

EVO is the definitive magazine IMHO. CAR Magazine is a former shadow of what it once was. I think those standard wheels really do work a bit better myself on the 458.

 

+1

Agree

 

IN PARIS AGAIN
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Shame we don't have those small front plates here in the U.K.

 

Can you register a car on an old style plate where the front plate is tiny? I remember seeing a new Boxer with a very small (silver on black?) front plate. The sale of old plate registration numbers seems to be a huge industry in GB.
Here you can submit any combination of letters and numbers up to 8 characters (minimum of 2). If it is available and approved you just pay an extra fee and you could have '458' for your lic plate. Front plate is required here unfortunately and it is the same size as all the American plates you see.
CH

 

Looks like the plates need to be on the top of the bumper as a sticker/decal.

 

That's a very interesting thought. When my time comes I'm certainly going to have to find some way of getting the plate into that space between the winglets...

... Halfway through typing I thought I'd look up number plate regulations here in the U.K. Using the old plate won't work, car has to be built before 1973. But what I did find out is that there isn't a legal requirement for the size of the number plate, only for the letters and their spacing. That, in theory at least, means if you buy a personalised number with very few characters you can have a shorter plate that fits the gap between the winglets (Getting rid of the pony in the process). Much as I despise personalised number plates, that might just be the answer.

 

A few millimetres shaved here and there, for both size and spacing, won't be noticed either...!

 

I agree that the plate looks best down there. Sadly, I think the silver horse needs to go for a tidier installation.

 

I wonder what the lic plate "L 44" would cost over there?
CH

 

I've just had a quick look and you can get down to 4 characters (from the usual 7) from about £3.5 and you can get it down to 3 characters for about 22K. I shall have to consider carefully how much the front plate problem bothers me when I order.

EDIT: I can get 3 characters for about 8K! So with a bit of searching probably even cheaper than that.