458 Speciale : Finally got mine in China

Hello everyone,

I've been lurking on the forum without an account for almost a year while I was looking for my first F car.
I've been living in China (right now in the South) for over 11 years and recently started my hunt.

Originally wanted to find a F430 Scuderia or Spider, for the "vintage mechanical monster" vibe it gave me, but after months of searching for a decent model, I just had to give up. Sadly, when those made it here, people had no clue about how to maintain them properly, and most cars I found were wrecked or close.

I thought it wouldn't be an issue anymore with recent models... how wrong was I !
I checked maybe 15 458s, test drove 8-10 ish.. a nightmare.
Most of the cars didn't even have decent levels of oil / coolant for starters (I didn't check the levels on the only one that was delivered to me for a test drive, and ended up in a cloud of smoke on the highway)

Most of them were crashed then rebuilt (even though sellers were telling otherwise), fortunately I was cautious enough to fly a mechanic to do detail checks on every single cars. Cost me a bunch to do so, but knowing that the market price here is pretty much double VS the US, better safe than sorry.

I was about to give up and find a HK based RHD (which would be a lot of admin issues), when I finally found a 458 AND a Speciale in a Foshan (1h+ from home) Garage. I was about to go for the first, but my wife asked me if I'm insane, and said SP is a no brainer.

So here she is, beautiful red, not so beautiful fake stripe (sticker...), golden rims (could've done less flashy), but still, angry as they come, and in great shape, around 18000 km.

Sent her for inspection at Ferrari Guangzhou, who gave the green light, patched up a few things and collected that beauty yesterday. Broke the powered mirrors switch after 30 min, and had both electric windows controllers pop out and fly behind those Alcantara seats. But hey. I own a Corvette back in France so I'm used to plastic flying around. It's not the point anyway.

Last, I know this is a "collectors item" but I do intend to drive it, on road and possibly on track since Zhuhai where I live is perfectly equipped for that.

Cheers !


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I had the illusion that Ferraris being such luxury items and beautiful machines, the amount of respect from owners would be sky high, and the market pristine, and the scams inexistent.

But really, it kinda feels like the members in my first ever car club (Honda CRX Del Sol back at the time) were more careful in general ^^

That is, at least my impression of the current state of Ferraris in China. (And it's interesting you're pointing this out in Europe too).

It's not being helped by the fact that most supercars here are bought for face purpose (showing off) and very much less for driving purpose. Most of the owners have no idea about what they're buying, they just want the most expensive one, and they have no idea about how to maintain them. I've seen a bunch of Ferraris during my years here, and barely ever heard them going over 3k rpm.

The only passionate owners I found are not really voicing it out so they're hard to find.

Rest of the cars on the market belong to "clubs" that are actually renting them to rich kids who want to show off with different models, and just murder them while driving them.

Hopefully they reopen soon so I get to go out travel for a bit, but also to host fellow Ferrari aficionados down South China

 

We can call it a "garage" but it's more two outdoor parking spots covered by the house's porch
I did install a Tesla charger there so I don't need to hunt for a Supercharger. But now the MX has been kicked out by the Speciale..

I'm currently building my new house with one of these James Bond car lifts to make it vanish into the ground. Should be done in a year or so

That's a rendering to give you the idea :
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Thanks

I've been driving around for 500km ish km now, and I do feel I still need to adapt to it.
From reading the forum, it seems that almost everybody drives in Track mode and pushes the car around without much issues.

But I'm used to daily drive my Ftype (V6 stage 1, so around 400HP / 420ish torque, supercharged), and always pushing it to its limits since I know that car very well.
When I floor the Speciale, it's another animal. Gotta learn how to NOT use 100% of its potential every single time, especially since the roads here can be tricky (lots of oil / water spills, + unpredictable (and slow) drivers).

I surely don't want to end up in one of these Youtube / Tiktok videos

 

Tail happy is the word. So far I managed to catch her back, except one time on a (luckily empty) 4 lanes road on which she decided to change lane without my consent.. ended up safe and still going the same direction but that's when I decided to take it easy.

Tires are Pilot Sport Cup 2, they're still in good shape. I live in the south, so hot climate (20 degrees in winter), and rain season is over for now, but they just love washing the roads at all time.

 

Thanks I live in Zhuhai, 20 min away from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuhai_International_Circuit
So tracking it will definitely happen, that being said, I'm not a professional driver, so I'll start by practicing with lower value cars, and run the Speciale later.

我也可以说中文 ；）