I’ve seen this car in person and it is one of the best looking speciales out there! Huge congrats and thanks for the write up. I have been missing my 488 dearly and was searching for another but I cannot get over how good looking the speciale is. Hmmmm....
Very nice Sam. Very nice indeed. That's one heck of a beautiful car. I'll be interested in hearing your thoughts on owning the Speciale vs the 488 after you've had the car for 6 months or so. The 458 grows on you quite a lot, the more you drive it. Anyway, congratulations - that's a really spectacular car; and now that you own a Speciale with a black dash board, I'll have to start taking you a bit more seriously as a Ferrari owner. Ray
I've experienced that same looseness on basically a smooth roll on of throttle in a sweeper; in a 911 it's fun time as the rear tires hook up; in the speciale and the 488 it's more like "pay attention because those rear tires are not loaded enough to hook up and blast"
Haha glad you approve of the purchase my friend. Check back with me then but I bet you're right as the car seems to be getting better and better the more I drive and get comfortable in the driver's seat, it really is spectacular Oh and you make me want to start the official no-nero upper dash club lol
Yeah, unlike any other car I've owned the Speciale will progressively slide on demand with light throttle when the tires are cold. Kind of addicting once you get the hang of it, I'm worried I will go through tires faster on this car lol. It just feels light, almost like the wheels and rubber are narrower with less contact patch when they really aren't 488 and 911 both have a more solid & planted feeling for me, but then would snap out a bit less intuitively and harder to predict when
Speaking of more comfortable in the seat... one thing I noticed on my 458 was that proper seat adjustment really made a big difference w/ my Italia. When I first purchased the car and drove it, I felt like something was off a bit. Then I realized it was because my seating position was all out of whack. I remember I spent like 30 or 45 minutes sitting in the car (in the garage) and running through every position for all the seat adjustments, until I found all the perfect angles and what felt best. After doing that, driving the car felt worlds better to me. I'm not sure if you have tried doing that, but for me that made a huge difference in how connected I felt when driving the 458. Ray
From yesterday: Sunday morning sunrise in the Speciale Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
My first 1000 miles done on the car, she's at 13k now Awesome saturday morning blast through the canyons. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Congratulations! Beautiful spec!! I just passed the 1K mile mark... you know it’s true love when you go to pick up your friends new merc but you take a pic of your speciale... along with every one else at the dealership... lol Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
I have been told that the base 458 actually has a more aggressive sound than the Speciale, something to do with the cam used as part of the package to get the extra power. Is this true in your experience? I'm considering whether it's worth moving to a Speciale from the Spider but I don't want to lose both my dome burner and my perfect sound.
I opened up the valves and that has not been my experience. It’s like driving the spider with the back window down, probably a little bit louder. It’s amazing. I highly recommend the upgrade. The speciale is other worldly.
Hm. That has not been my experience. Maybe with the top down, but I think the speciale sounds better when compared to the back window down on the spider. Are you sure the exhaust valves were open? It makes a huge difference. I think what I like the most about the speciale is that the sound builds as you go from low RPMs all the way up to 9K and the nice high pitch starts around 7K.
To be clear I haven't spent a lot of time in the Italia or 458 Spider but this is my experience as well. Speciale seems to be more exhaust noise, Italia and Spider seem to be more engine pitch. Both are loud, Speciale feels louder because of the in-cabin noise (it's very tough if not impossible to take a phone call with stock exhaust)