Everything you wanted to know about the Ferrari 488 Spider and didn’t know who to ask!

It’s a hot and sultry day at the Madras Motor Race Track, some 40km outside Chennai. If I were in a normal car, the only thing I’d be bothered about would be not how fast it could go but how fast the air-con cooled. But I’m not in a normal car.

I have with me on an empty track a Ferrari 488 Spider, which is best tasted with its roof down. The Spider is the convertible version of the regular 488 GTB coupe, which switches from hard top to open top with the simple press of a button. A clutch of electrical motors lifts the retractable roof and slides it into a compartment behind my head in 14 seconds flat, leaving me exposed to the elements.

I have to admit, I’ve never been a big fan of convertibles. Firstly, India isn’t exactly a convertible country like California or Southern Europe where clean air, clear skies and temperate climes make open top motoring an absolute joy. What we get here instead is heat, dust, rain and pollution, which after a long drive coat your face with grime. There are engineering challenges too. A convertible is never as structurally stiff as a normal hard top (see how easily you can crush a tin with the top peeled off to understand what I mean) and hence the body structure needs extra reinforcements, which add weight and cost.

So, what is it that people find appealing about convertibles?

And why do they pay a premium over and above a similar car with a fixed roof?

Hear me roar

Driving with the roof down is still a rare and hence a novel experience, especially in our country where the infinitesimal number of convertibles sold every month is not even a rounding error of total car sales.

Apart from the novelty, there’s a certain romanticism about open-top motoring that makes it special. In a convertible, the sun and the stars are your friends, the wind playfully ruffles your hair and you feel that much closer to the surroundings. In the 488 Spider though, you feel closer to heaven.

The 488 Spider is mechanically similar to the GTB coupe and hence offers the same enthralling driving experience. It’s just that in the Spider, which has the rawness of a superbike, it’s served with more intensity.

I fire the engine in the pit lane and can immediately tell it sounds much louder. In the GTB, you are ensconced in an air-conditioned cabin but in the Spider there’s just a few inches of air between the engine and myself. Exiting the pit lane, I press my right foot down hard and all hell breaks loose.

Performance is simply ballistic, but that’s to be expected from the 3.9 litre V8 engine, which develops a colossal 660hp. What you don’t expect is the assault on your senses.

Gone with the wind

The baritone burble of the engine turns to a deafening roar as the Spider accelerates wildly. The Spider is so quick that before you know it, you’re nudging 200kph on the short straights of the twisty Madras Race track. At these speeds it’s not just the glorious sound of the engine but also the buffeting of the wind, which feels like Hurricane Katrina has entered the cabin. You have to shout to your co-passenger to be heard and the high-end audio system is pretty redundant. In any case nothing beats the music dished out by the two quartets of cylinders firing in perfect unison along with the crackling sound track of the exhaust.

A few hard laps around the Madras Race Track also reveals how fluent the 488 Spider’s handling is. The steering is quick and pin sharp, the brakes are eye-poppingly effective and the overall balance of the car is spot on. A raft of electronic driving systems acts as a safety net and allows you to exploit and enjoy the mammoth performance, but what this car still demands is respect. If you think you’re SebastienVettel and push it too hard, you could end up as part of the scenery.

The thing is that the Ferrari Spider isn’t for setting the fastest possible lap times on a track. It’s for open-air pleasure seekers who love the mix of speed, sound and smell with nothing but the sky above their heads.

Hormazd Sorabjee is one of the most senior and much loved auto journalists in India, and is editor of Autocar India

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From HT Brunch, November 18, 2018

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