The Ferrari 488. Ferrari
Ferrari is one of the world’s most recognized brands. Not just car brands — brands, period. Which is amazing when you consider that production has always been extremely limited. Even today, only some 7,000 cars are produced annually. Toyota, by contrast, has sold more than 40 million Corollas worldwide.
But why Ferrari? As the car world shifts toward automation and electrification, it’s fair to wonder about the allure of the Italian marque. Is it just rich guys showing off, or something more?
The extremely glib answer to a decidedly one-percenter question is this: to really understand, you’ve got to drive one. But that’s difficult to actually manage, unless you sign up for a cheesy drive “experience” in Las Vegas, or have a Silicon Valley buddy known for his largess.
COMPARE IT TO AN INDIFFERENT WINE DRINKER WHO’S HANDED A GLASS OF VINTAGE MONTRACHET
But if you did get behind the wheel, the Ferrari allure would make more sense. Compare it to an indifferent wine drinker who’s handed a glass of vintage Montrachet. It’s not that you’d suddenly now turn up your nose at Two Buck Chuck, but you might regale your fellow tipplers about that time you killed a $4,000 bottle of Romanée-Conti. Nowthat was a gas.
Which brings me to the latest Ferrari mid-engine supercar, the 488 Spider, which is being delivered to lucky owners around the world about now. It runs $275,000 and up. The 488 Spider is a convertible and it’s fast and it’s sexy and I could explain how it’s different than the previous car — actually I will do a bit of that — but it won’t really won’t mean a damn thing to you unless you’ve been in a Ferrari before.
How to describe what makes a Ferrari special? There is no doubt that they are playthings, and owners show them off. But neither of those points get at the brand’s essence, that moment theFerrari-ness of the actual thing cleaves away your own preconceptions.
A Ferrari Challenge Stradale, based on the 360. Ferrari
My first blush with a real Ferrari came more than 15 years ago, in a 360 Modena, one of the direct antecedents of the 488. Like the 488, the V-8 engine sat in the middle of the car, behind the driver. It was painted, of course, a classic Ferrari red. I was attending a press event and a colleague and I shared the car, driving the back roads near Connecticut’s Lime Rock racetrack. (Ferrari didn’t actually let us out on the track that day. Probably wise.) I got the first turn at the wheel, and I started the car and the cabin vibrated with a sound that was high and animalistic, a ferocious creature scrabbling in the engine bay behind us, anxious to break free.
Setting off, I gently triggered the behind-the-wheel paddle shifters, the first time I had experienced the F1 transmission technology.
I PROMISED MYSELF THAT I WAS GOING TO BE TOTALLY COOL ABOUT THIS
I promised myself that I was going to be totally cool about this. I was in my 20s and I lived in New York City and I’d traveled around the world and there wasn’t much left in the universe that was gonna impress me. I knew it all, man. But let’s see what this thing was about. I stomped on the gas and — holy-gobsmack! Guuumhhhh, my body stuffed into the seat, my bone marrow cooked, and soft viscera muddled into jelly. This was unlike any car I had ever driven. There was no gathering of speed as in, say, my Honda Civic Si, which I once considered quite quick. The 360 was perception-altering, the Ayahuasca of autos. This was God’s rolled-up newspaper, swatting the car through time and space.
I reluctantly turned the wheel over to my colleague Josh, and I tried to relay my feelings to him. Yes, he’d been sitting next to me, his body undergoing the same flash-bang speed, but I suspected that the experience was far different, as if a universe separated the two leather seats. Riding in a Ferrari is not the same as driving a Ferrari.
And it was true. He set off and his eyes shone and his face became oddly still, as if he’d gone to another place. It was plenty of fun in the right-hand seat, but I didn’t experience the same joy-bomb of exhilaration as when I was in control. Maybe that’s why Josh didn’t seem to hear me when I told him to slow down. There was a police car lying in wait amid a copse of trees. He got a ticket, a sizable one, but he didn’t even seem to mind. The Ferrari was worth it.
The Ferrari F430. Ferrari
In 2004, the 360 was replaced by the F430 Berlinetta. It was better looking, faster, and more technologically advanced. I eventually drove all of the variants, including the convertible and the 430 Scuderia. Each was a delight, a reinvigoration of the senses. But like the first-ever hit of E, my first time in a Ferrari was the most explosive. It’s not that I was chasing the high, but I now had a definitive reference point. I knew what to expect. The sound of the naturally aspirated engine as it was pushed to 9,000 rpms, the automotive equivalent of brain hypoxia, survived by only the rarest of ca