Ferrari Fred 458 from Switzerland

My name is Fred and I live in Zurich, Switzerland. I recently bought a black 458 Italia in my preferred spec and I've taken the liberty of opening this thread to share with you my experience with my 458.

I will be keeping this thread up to date with new parts and mods, as well as drives and car meets.

Ferrari F360 Spider
I previously owned a Ferrari F360 Spider (manual transmission). I added 16M wheels to that car and eventually sold it to ultimately make space for the 458. I've done some work on this car myself, such as the oil and oil filter change as well as the tedious sticky button removal. Here are a few pics of my old F360.

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Ferrari 458 Italia
It's a 2011 and it's metallic black. I would have taken any red one, or silver, or blue, or yellow. But over here, in Switzerland, most 458s available for sale are red and even though I was flexible on exterior color, I did gravitate more towards the black for some reason, especially given the interior of this specific car.

That said, what was important for me during my search was the interior: I wanted pretty much everything in carbon, most importantly the carbon LED steering wheel, the carbon console, the carbon dashboard trim but most importantly the carbon bucket seats (size L). This was pretty much the only car, in my specific price range, that had these options.

I bought the car with 30.000km (18.600 miles) and I plan on driving it. If anybody wants specifics on price, I'm more than happy to share by private message although keep in mind that your local market will most probably vary from mine (Switzerland).

One more pull-factor that made my choice fall on this specific 458 was the service history. It has a, what I call and gracefully christened, a summa cum laude service history, if that makes any sense. What I mean by that is; the car was serviced every year since original purchase (2011), at pretty much the same interval (month) and at the same Ferrari dealer. The paradox is that I generally don't really care if a car "skipped" one (or more) services, or if the car was serviced across different dealers. However, with future resale in mind, I felt it was a good selling point. The issue now is that I will have to do the service at this exact dealer each year for the coming years

Enough talk. Here are some pictures as well as mods I have done to the car.

First day with the car
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Dual Channel Dashcarm install - Blackvue DR900S-2CH - video to follow
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On a Sunday drive with a like-minded Ferrar enthusiast
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Blacking out the cavallinos and Ferrari text
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Black badges installed along with a new licence plate - Note: car is generally not this dirty but it's driven pretty much daily, so that's my excuse!
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Interior shot
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Blacked out sill plates (video below)
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Sill plate / kickplate removal and Plasti Dip of various badges, emblems and sill plates.


Future Mods and Ideas
I think the next thing I am going to do is paint the exhaust tips (heat resistant black) or have them coated in a ceramic black coating.

One day I would love a catless exhaust system, but it's all a bit more complicated in Switzerland, not to mention expensive. I could do the install myself, but you'd technically need to register the exhaust. Long story. More on that in a future video!

I'd love a pair of carbon door panels, I think that would look really nice with the carbon dashboard. I've understood that these are an OEM factory option. Does anybody have the part number for the carbon door panels, or a link? I would prefer OEM over aftermarket.

Carbon sill plates are coming next summer, as mentioned in the video.

The hood needs a new clear bra (paint protection). Video on that to follow. Might do the install myself.

I am contemplating protecting the lights with a yellow transparent wrap (Le Mans style). I know it's not everybody's cup of tea, but it's not your car, it's mine It's a reversible thing and I'm open to experimenting a bit.

That's pretty much all for now. I'll add more content as I go along (a lot more to come, I promise!).

Thanks for watching!
Fred

 

Wauw, you read my mind! Just as I was editing my initial post (I added the carbon door panels), you mention them

Loving your 458! Looks mean with the widows tinted. How much % tint is that? That might go on my list, although it's illegal to go over a certain % of tint here.

May I ask, what you don't like about the Plasti Dip? In general, or not on these sill plates?

 

Sure, where about are you in CH?

 

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Overseeing part of Zurich
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En route to Interlaken
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4000km | 2500 miles through the winter since my ownership No issues as of late, except for two or three cases where the dash flashed the Electrical Systems Failer / Go to dealer message. Will look into that soon. It disappeared after turning off and back on the car.

Switched to Pirelli Sottozero 2 a while ago.
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Old summers.
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Groningen, The Netherlands
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During my visit to my old hometown in The Netherlands, I decided to have the headlights wrapped for protection. I went with a shade darker than transparent. I first wanted to go yellow (Le Mans style) but decided to not do that - maybe in the summer.

I also had the third brake light as well as the lower fog lights (rear) foiled in a darker tint. My idea was to have more focus on the two main brake lights (left and right) and kind of "remove'' the center brake light from the equation. By darkening it out, it's no longer so present, which gives the car a wider look (from behind). Maybe all of this makes no sense, oh well.

Before
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Third brake light half wrapped to see the color - this was in the process of getting my preferred darkness. Fog lights still unwrapped.
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After
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