Drove the 488 today.. thoughts, photos and videos

Ferrari should build a turbo diesel. What could be better, it's green (light green), massive torque at low rpm, save fuel, durable, quiet, and trust me, many people will give positive comments here about diesel super car once Ferrari starts.

 

Hi Rod,

Here in Germany, dealers are providing demo 488's to good customer as a means of soliciting orders. This particular dealer offered to let us drive the car for up to 5 days.

 

Did you place your orde yet?

 

No, I want to drive it first, and then decide. I usually hate turbo cars, so I need to see if I am going to like this thing before I place an order. What I really want to order right now is F12 GTO, but apparently I'm not in high enough standing for this to be possible.

 

I guess we'll find out...
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U ordering from Europe or us?

 

If I do order, it will be US, as I spend most of my time there...

 

Best of luck.

 

Has Ferrari done that with previous models? If not, seems like Ferrari didn't trust its customers to plunk down the money without being convinced this time.



Mark

 

Perhaps. Our dealer gave us an FF for a two week test drive to help push our decision but not many people buying FFs.. They certainly weren't lending out 458s or F12s for two week test drives.

 

So odd...you are driving the 488 for days and my dealer doesn't even know when I can place an order of when the cars come to America.

 

Only American dealers !

 

Agree, in the meantime I think we will see electrically assisted turbos in our street cars. They will be one consolidated piece as opposed to using a completely separate electrical power plant. This technology is already being utilized in current Formula 1 cars.

These assisted turbos spool-up instantaneously, similar in principle to how the La Ferrari, P1 and 918 use their hybrid motors to "fill-in" the gaps of the turbo lag.

We are in a "gotta have it now" society. We gotta have our information now, our food now, our favorite television programs now (on demand) and we absolutely have to have our power/throttle response NOW!

 

Who cares? He will probably get tired of it after just a few hours of driving,
especially since he is used to driving his Speciales LOL

 

I'm not going to say I love the fact that the 488 went to turbo.

The bottom line is that they needed more HP to stay competitive. Competition is extremely high right now.
The speciale is the highest HP per liter of any motor ever built. So they would have had to keep the HP/L at 132 and brought the new V8 to a 5.0 to get 660hp.

Government is a big factor here
Other than the Big V12s and Viper V10 No Auto group is increasing motor size - For crissake the One:1 has a 5 liter V8 lol
Z06 Smaller Motor with Supercharger
BMW M - Smaller motors with turbo
AMG - Smaller Motors with turbos
Holy Crap all Carrera's are going to be turbo!

Unless anyone here knows whats going on from the C level perspective of an auto manufacturer we dont know what kind of significant pressure government is putting on auto groups to make ALL their cars more efficient. Lets not forget CUSTOMER DEMAND. Yes, its hard to believe, but I wont doubt that most millionaires now want their super car to be more fuel efficient. Tesla, although isn't direct competition has brought up the argument of "look how fast this car is, and it burns 0 fuel..."

Its trend, and Ferrari kind of has to follow with the 488 because its their volume car. They can probably get away with the Big V12s because of number of units sold.

Anyway rant over. I'm sure it's still a great car, but a Pure Bred Ferrari? I personally don't think so. I actually think the Scuderia with the Sequential Tran is more of a pure bred than the Speciale, but that's top for another discussion.

Just to add context to my Fcar experience. My family owned a Scuderia for some time, and now owns a Speciale.

 

Stopped by a dealer this afternoon and was able to see this one, number 211255. Metallic black with tan interior. Wasn't able to test drive today, as it's a beautiful afternoon and every single sales person had already left for the weekend! Here are some photos...

First time I've seen one in the flesh. The door handles look silly. Guess they're supposed to direct air to the big scoops?? I dunno. You have to look to find the engine hiding in there. Rear scoops aren't as visually objectionable as I thought they would be. I'll call it a 458.1, with some new aero stuff. The outgoing 458.0 looks cleaner and sleeker, my opinion.

Separately. The receptionist said they sold their last Speciale 3 months ago. Said they wish they could get more. There has been an increase in requests for them recently.
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Guys that's amazing. I have not heard of anything like that here in the states with a newly introduced, highly sought after model (not including the FF). What a great opportunity.

 

Gorgeous! The Engine bay is the only unflattering piece of the car.

 

Not as nice as the 458 engine bay (though I am basing this on actual versus pictures) but I bet it is a lot easier to keep clean ;-)

 

I'd guess that Ferrari are aware that a lot of people are going to dismiss the 488 before they've even been near it because it's a turbo so they feel they have to go the extra mile this time.

 

A few more photos
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I have been hoping that also for a long time, but unfortunately I believe I'm right.

The golden years are over regarding energy consumption, increasing efficiency stands above everything. This concerns the global economy, not only the automotive industry. In this regard the disappearance of N/A-engines and in the next step the disappearance of combustion engines is insignificant. The combustion energy can not win against the electrical energy, not in a globalized, fully connected and digitalized world.

Over the next 20 years we petrol heads have to learn to think different!

 

Now THAT's something I'd get very excited about! Call it the new Ferrari 508.