458 Speciale Revealed

Cool, I'm looking forward to your reviews and comparison with your Italia. What else can you share based on the test drive?

 

I support such a statement definitely not! It's just an example of how much nonsense is written in the "professional media" around this car.

Your focus, yes, I have the same view. At the end not each (theoretical) millisecond in acceleration or better lap times is important - it's all about driving pleasure and driving experience! I earn no salary with racing…

 

So I'm glad I live in Germany... 20 km/h over speedlimit is a real bargain and 30 Euros Plus here in the northern part there are quite some routes without speedlimit and not much traffic so you can nail the throttle once and a while. It's incredible how fast you can reach 300...
The test-drive with the Speciale was just around half an hour. The car was equipped with wintertyres. Despite of that the steering is incredibly responsive, absolutely neutral with maybe a little less understeer into fast corners. There is less body-roll, yet not uncomfortable. Road-noise is more, the engine-sound appears to be a little more "raw". The gearshifts are remarkably faster, especially the downshifts are lightning-fast. Seat position is a little bit lower than in my Italia, which is good for me as I'm 6ft 5 and headroom is an issue esp. wearing a helmet on racetracks.
I will come up with more details and pictures after delivery, which is scheduled for the 20th this month...

 

This is why I think that the Speciale is faster than declared. We will know in Spring for sure (after some 3th part tests)

 

At least in your country and specifically your state there are ways to get rid of fixed speed camera's

 

Just learnt delivery is delayed to late February. Ferrari didn't state any reasons... Nonetheless deliveries continue. My Dealer receives one Speciale today that was originally planned for March, but has a lower VIN than the demo-car they received 3 weeks ago... Maybe it's a quality-issue or they have problems getting specific parts.

 

Quality issues or problems having parts? Please, not again... I'm so fed up waiting for my hugely delayed 991 GT3, which should have been delivered in September last year and is still a couple of weeks away.

Did you order any Atelier items or exotic custom options?

 

Nope. Rosso corsa, NART-stripe, Stereo, sat-nav, horse stitching, red Calipers, leather interior in black, carbon engine bay ...
So nothing unusual in my eyes...

 

Australia, the state of Victoria to be more specific. Often referred to as the Police State for obvious reasons.

 

A 458 Speciale is $600k Australian OTR. The harshest taxes are scaled, starting at about $70,000 Australian. Above that you get Luxury Car tax of 33% on top of import duty. Then you get a 10% GST on the lot, then a 6% stamp duty to register the car for the road.
We also get raped by the local distributors who run at far higher margins than overseas counterparts. Why not import yourself you say? So called parallel importation isn't allowed by the government and the vehicle can't be road registered- ever.

The point of all these taxes is supposedly to protect our local car manufacturing industry which pumped out large, ancient and unsuitable cars the market just didn't buy. Government solution was to pour billions into subsidies to keep the workforce employed. Epic fail and the house of cards just blew over with Ford and GMH packing up and leaving town in the next couple of years. Only leaves Toyota as the sole remaining manufacturer who are now unviable as the parts manufacturing industry won't survive on one remaining player. In a few years we will have zero car manufacturing; but do you reckon we will lose the protectionist taxes.........................not a chance in hell.

 

I pretty much have one. Dubai police has a website where you can go online and pay your fines via credit card. I do that regularly. My only small consolation is that I get some airline miles which at some point allow me to upgrade to business class when I travel.

 

Can you still avoid the radars on Sheikh Zayed Road by going to the rightmost lane?

 

Great configuration. Congrats btw...a good start to 2014!

 

God, you really live in a police state. I've just spent 10 days of my forty year old life in Australia on one vacation (3 of those days in Melbourne). When I arrived at the airport with my US passport, the immigration officer said I've been flagged and need to go to another room for an interview. There a lady said we in Australia like to do a lot of checking so do you mind if I ask you some questions? I said go ahead......

Apart from that, I must say the friendliest people I have encountered on any vacation.

I don't understand their high taxes on auto imports and if you can't drive fast on a such a huge continent then where? On the tiny congested island of UK maybe? I see people have a lot of fun with their cars there.

 

Shk Zayed Rd is too congested to have any fun. You won't go far in the right most lane before you are stuck behind a slow poke, the story of almost every lane.

 

Yes, you were way faster than me in your 1M on the challenging roads. I can drive very fast, enough to land me in jail in most jurisdictions many times over, but pushing a super car to 80-90% of its limit is scary enough for me. 100% is not my cup of tea, at least not yet. I need more practice.

Nevertheless, I look forward to see how much harder you can kick my ass with the GT3 and then the 458S.

 

Next time I am in Dubai...can I come for a ride along? Joking aside you guys seem to have fun. And that is why we buy cars like the ones you mention...

 

Sorry to bring it back to colour... Not specced yet but really want to go with this, never had anything but red.. Not a great picture I know, White/Blue stripe/gold wheels and calipers... What do you guys think, step to far?
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Looks like two different shades of white... If I would have taken a white one, I would have gone for the tricolore as stripes. The Lady in the Atelier in Maranello showed me one - looked great. Furthermore there were little tricolores on the fins and the mirrors...

 

Yeah, the 'white' of the NART-stripe isn't Bianco Avus. Personally, I find it a bit 'too much' with the white, blue and gold, but that's all a matter of taste. Have you tried the normal alloys with blue calipers?

I've ordered mine in white, but plain, without the stripe. I'll probably put a tricolore on it at some stage, but I will use a wrap for that, since I doubt I will want to keep that forever.

Bigblock737, do you happen to have any pictures of the Atelier's tricolore? I'm quite curious to see how that turned out.

 

Sure! contrary to what most people think, we've got some amazing roads over here, they are just an hour or two of boring driving outside the city, that's all...

 

Crappy picture, Looked superb on the config, the 2 different whites looked good and seemed to make the blue stripe less in your face, not a fan of dark alloys but the gold did it for me.. The tricolore was the alternative I was thinking off...

 

Sorry, unfortunately I just saw a printout. I was thinking about a tricolore on my red one but the contrast between the red stripe and the car itself would have required a frame and that was too many colours...
The white stripe of the tricolore was the same as the car and it looked nice and clean. I remember the three stripes were all same size and ended and the front of the bonnet...

Cheers
Andy

 

I think it looks great. Very proper race car style IMO.

 

Ferrari 458 Speciale - 3 January 2014 - Autogespot

One with a tricolore...