Ferrari's Lighter, Faster & More Sideways 458 Makes You Wish You Were Rich

The 458 is already exciting. But with new tech to help it go sideways better, we might need fresh pants

18 May 2015

If you thought the Ferrari 458 couldn’t get any more extreme, think again. Welcome to the lighter, more powerful, more sideways 458 Speciale.

That’s 90kg lighter by the way, or about the same as a fat bloke. As anyone knows, losing a fat man’s body weight from your car makes it feel a hell of a lot faster. Especially if you also gain another 35bhp in the process.

The boost means that the 1290kg Speciale makes 597bhp from the same 4.5-litre high-revving V8, and still at the astonishing 9000rpm redline. That makes it the new record-holder for the highest specific output for a naturally-aspirated engine, at 133bhp per litre. Nice. The upshot is power-to-weight of 463bhp per tonne, which bags the all-important bragging rights over the McLaren 12C’s 459bhp per tonne. Ferrari is definitely taking the Brits seriously.

How fast is it? Faster than a greased piglet in the Hyperloop, is your answer. Ferrari says 62mph is yours in three seconds dead. That’s 3.0 seconds, otherwise known as freaking bonkers.

It looks a bit different because of special aerodynamic kit Ferrari is testing on the Speciale. The funky three-exit central exhaust has had to go to make way for a better diffuser setup, and bodywork tweaks all over have improved the cooling.

What we also like about this maddest of fast Ferraris is a new Side Slip Angle Control (SSC), which basically acts as a more precise traction control system that actively lets you pull heroic oversteer. That, we reckon, is an absolutely legendary piece of kit to add. You won’t find that on an Audi any time soon...

Ditch the sideways action and hit the lap times hard, and you can expect to pull 1.33g laterally. No other Ferrari, ever, can corner as hard as this beast, and the lap times show it. The Speciale knocks 1.5 seconds off the standard 458 Italia’s 1 min 25 sec time around Ferrari’s Fiorano test track.

The price for this? It’s not officially confirmed yet, but the rumour mill makes it £210,000 or so. Pocket change if you’ve just won the Euromillions, so if you want a Speciale in your life you’d better buy some tickets, pronto.