Drove the 488 today.. thoughts, photos and videos

This new insight of Ferrari really had its start with mid-'50s American cars, where you could buy the same basic car in three or four iterations, with each higher-priced version carrying more chrome trim than the one beneath it. It would appear that carbon fiber is the chrome-trim analog of the 21st century. I find the whole thing silly and beneath a company like Ferrari, but I have heard that dealers are incentivized to push carbon fiber as they get much of the markup, taking some of the sting out of being unable to sell new cars over list price. It's a very refined racket, taken to an art form by Ferrari. Fred

 

rmitchell - any pictures of the exterior of the white car?

 

Thanks for the pics!
but really don't like how the engine looks, as per James May: very coffee machine

 

Totally agree! First time I showed my mother the Speciale, she stood out back peering through the glass and said "Wow, it's like looking into a jewelry case!"

 

lol, how old are you?

 

I'm 46, but my mother LOVES beautiful cars! (...and as you may have surmised, she also loves jewelry!)

 

Convey my regards to her. I respect women who loves cars.

 

Ditto on the age LOL, except that my mom hates the Ferrari (long story LOL)

 

Hahaha love it! God I can't wait to get my Speciale in a month! She's straight in for protective bra, radar system then into my garage (perhaps after a decent drive!) Speaking of garages... I drove a 458 for the first time the other day (yes 4 months after ordering my S) to check if it will fit into my garage! It does with about 5cm either side of the mirrors. Safe to say it's going to be a careful process parking the S every time!

I walked away from my urban drive of the 458 (which didn't exceed 5000rpm due to traffic) thinking it's just on another level. I mean, there are cars and then there are Ferraris! The steering wheel feels amazing, the car shrank around me, yes people turned their heads (which I don't really like and why I ordered mine in TDF blue). I was a little surprised how eager the exhaust was to go into 'loud' mode. I'm told the Speciale has a higher threshold which I hope is the case for discreet city driving. There was just so much presence and occasion. I'd say a lot of that is the heritage built into the car and the Italian-ness, not to mention the N/A motor. If the 488 can offer such an 'event' when you drive it, I'm sure it will go down well with the enthusiasts... Just not as well as the 458 - Like you say Ferrari has made one of the all time greats in the 458 models. Hold on to your Speciales people, there are only two regrets in life...
1. Not buying a Speciale
2. Selling a Speciale

 

Speciale is being this special because the car that replaces it, is the turbocharged 488.
Scuderia is not that special, because being replaced by one of the best car Ferrari ever made, the 458.

 

Friend had a 16M and sold. Says he likes the 458 spider "better in every way". He did have the 458 delivered with stripes!

 

My mother...74 threatened to get out of the car 458 and walk home after her first and apparently last ride...something about the sound with the flaps opened scared the crap out of her. I was not able to get above 45 mph. She loves the look of the car and yellow stitching. I luv Mom !

 

Ha ha... I think we need a whole new thread with stories about mums getting rides in Ferraris.....

 

Yep same experience but the sound and the acceleration made her scared and angry like really angry and as i have never seen my mum (76) that mad I slowed down and ambled home. Now she is happy to admire, sit in them but wont take a ride

 

My mum used to race. I think she is still faster than me

 

Hilarious... I think all our mums are cut from the same cloth... They enjoy looking at the car, but there's no way in hell that they want a (proper) ride!

(mine closed her eyes and wouldn't open them until the car stopped)

 

WOW!! COOL!!

 

Before her first ride I showed her the car in her underground apartment garage. I had the engine hood up and gave a nice rev on the throttle....she almost jumped 2 foot vertical in the air. I said Mom...this is how race cars sound.

 

I drove the 488, i confirm the rev limiter at 7500 rpm trans. in manual mode, manetino in race. I didn't test with trans. in auto but i think that would be the same.

 

I noticed the little camera button on the dash of the car your drove. That's the same button used to switch between front and rear cameras on the FF. So I'm assuming they now offer front camera on the 488 which makes sense because they offer it on FF and F12 - both cars that came after the 458. I would absolutely get that option. It's great to have the front camera on my FF - it really takes some of the worry out of how close you can get to the curb in a parking spot.

 

No, actually it doesn't. When I go from my 650S to my 458 the 458 just feels slow. Once you get used to having more performance it's hard to go back and still be satisfied. We don't watch black and white TV any more and even watching standard-definition TV is difficult now that we're used to HDTV. That's human nature. Your brain recalibrate to new experiences.

Yeah that one is a bummer. The McLaren has an 8500 RPM redline and you can drive it at that engine speed all day long.

You would care about that if you got used to a car that was .4 seconds faster. I know I care about it now. Also that's just one performance metric but a good indication of how the bar has been raised beyond the 458's capabilities.

No need to shoot you. But if Ferrari want to keep selling cars to people who will also test drive their competitors' cars they can't be selling cars that you come back to thinking "this Ferrari feels so slow now compared to the car I just drove". That's not what a Ferrari is supposed to be. That's not what the 458 was back when it was first released. Times move on. But, yes, the car has to be fun to drive. I suspect, based on owning the 650S, that the 488 will be plenty fun to drive because now it will have that burst of performance that really hikes your adrenaline when it kicks you in the backside. It's really fun to hit the accelerator hard in the McLaren 650S but my new expectation of speed has diminished my enjoyment of the 458. I suspect the 488 will bring back some of that excitement for people who have recalibrated their sense of speed. That may or may not be you. Only a test drive will tell you for sure.

In future models Ferrari will likely add some hybridization that will bring back the NA feel to then the turbo cars much the way the McLaren P1 has done so. The P1 is a turbo but the torque fill function of the electric engine really hides it. It's the best of both worlds: it jumps off the line like you wouldn't believe but then that massive wallop of torque continues to push and push right up to its 8500RPM redline. The 458 has the jump-off-the-line part down but it quickly runs out of steam at higher revs. I suspect the 488 won't jump off the line as quickly but will get that bit wallop of torque around 3000RPM and keep pushing until you run out of road.

A future hybrid 488-replacement, like the P1 does, would do both. The bigger problem Ferrari has is that they're going to have to go to a carbon fiber chassis (like they do in the LaFerrari) to handle all that power. The real area where McLaren continue to beat Ferrari (and why I won't buy the 488) is that the McLaren 650S has a proper carbon fiber chassis.

You will be downshifting more often in the 488 to keep it in the torque curve so hopefully they've tamed the transmission better than they did in the 458. That might be how it gets some of it's driving fun back. In the Chris Harris video it sounded like the 488 shifts more smoothly than the 458 does. I've had a very large number of embarrassing (for Ferrari) shifts in the various 458s that I've owned & driven whereas the McLaren shifts way smoother.

 

Hilarious

Correct

You should start one