Presenting – the new Ferrari 458 Speciale. Anyone else not feeling the name, ‘Speciale’? The Italians are always good at naming their cars like ‘Zonda’ and ‘Miura’ – but it seems like they’ve hit a high point and lost creativity, naming this special Ferrari…Speciale. No doubt that the name isn’t as seductive as its predecessor the Challenge Stradale and Scuderia, but what it loses in perception, it makes up with numbers.
In the subject of making something ‘speciale’, Ferrari is absolutely great at it. And they’ve put all their technological know-how tagged with their obsession in weight-shedding on this new road-going racer. In fact – they sort of have to, to make it more involving than the 430 Scuderia.
On with the numbers – Zerotohundred? 3-seconds flat and it’ll hit 124mph in just 9.2 seconds. Thats blisteringly quick! However, all of this is not achieved only by brute force because the power hike is only by 35 horsepower from 562bhp to 597bhp. Its the result of Ferrari’s weight-shedding skills. How many kgs you ask? 90kgs. That’s like driving a 458 Italia without a driver.
Ferrari fiddled with the combustion chamber and adding some changes to crankshaft created this spur of power increase. But it seems to still be short on power compared to its closest rival – the MP4-12C which put out a whopping 625bhp. For those who find power important, then this is not the car for you because Ferrari has always been about the way it feels and drive.
Something new to the road-going Ferraris – the 458 Speciale features active-aerodynamics that has assisted the car to achieve an amazing lateral-acceleration figure of 1.33 g. The engineering boffins at Ferrari has reworked the 458’s front end – adding an aero flap that activates at 105mph, reducing drag and generating more downforce. At the same time, notice that the Speciale comes with side-vanes? That is to assist the flow of the wind towards the rear of the car; which has an active-aero system similar to the La Ferrari hypercar that sets to create more rear-end downforce. All this technological know-how has made the new 458 Speciale – the most aero efficient road-going Ferrari ever made.
To achieve this great numbers – Ferrari has worked closely with Michelin to produce tyres that are developed specifically for this car. The Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 that comes with the 458 Speciale sets to boost the performance for every lap. Tagged with Ferrari’s new Side-Slip angle Control System (SCC) – Ferrari claims that the Speciale will produce more consistent lap-times too.
So.. is it ‘Speciale’ enough for you? It is for us and although we would have preferred the originally rumoured name – Monte Carlo, what matters is the car itself. We can’t wait for it to be revealed at Frankfurt when Ferrari will let out more secrets about the weight-shedding process and how the active-aero work. McLaren won’t be sleeping well tonight.
