The road to Speciale

First, it was perhaps the most changed of them all. If you went to town on the options list you could drop the weight by 110kg relative to a 360 Modena and it was quicker relative to its base car around Fiorano than any subsequent special. Second, it was the most improved. The 360 Modena was and remains a fine eight-tenths car (and a bargain right now), but drive it as you might hope a Ferrari to be driven and it was less than reassuring. The CS changed all that, and turned a slightly tricky Ferrari into an absolute delight, not just faster, but easier too. Finally, it is by far the rarest, rarer than an F40 would you believe, with seemingly fewer than 1300 units built (though all such numbers are hard to pin down precisely). The next time Ferrari decided to do something similar, it shifted over 1000 additional units.

I remember driving one to the north of England and back in a day and having one of the most memorable journeys I’ve enjoyed in any Ferrari. It was just the right kind of loud, surprisingly comfortable too and on the right roads, very special indeed. You can pay up to £250,000 for one today yet the strange thing is, that still strikes me as quite cheap.

Ferrari 430 Scuderia

I do love a Scud. They were always Scuds, weren’t they? But if there is a problem with them, it is the same as that which affects itself and subsequent specials and the 360 CS not at all: the car upon which it was based was already pretty damn good to begin with. I consider the F430 a sorely underrated Ferrari, probably because it’s not the prettiest, and even though the Scuderia raised power, dropped weight and sharpened up its act considerably, the fundamental excellence of the basic platform denied the Scud the wow factor so in evidence in the 360.

Like its successors Ferrari also made it a convertible too, and while it’s probably frightfully snobbish of me to say so, it rather spoiled the illusion so carefully and convincingly created by the 360 CS and 430 Scud of it being a race car for the road. It turned out it was also for people more keen to have a car to be seen in than to drive fast. But I’ve had some fine old times in Scuderias on road and track and I won’t have a word said against them. Except that given the choice I’d still choose the slower 360 CS. My (and the internet’s) best guess as to production volumes is around 2400 units, open cars included and you could today probably land a lovely, low miles coupé for something beginning with a ‘1’. Just.

Ferrari 458 Speciale

This is where I get into hot water, not least because I have an old friend and Ti subscriber who owns one. But… the only such ‘special’ I’ve ever been pleased to depart was one of these. Sorry. It was like going on your dream date, settling down in that cosy nook you asked for specially and finding everything to be perfect, better even than you expected, save the fact that the gorgeous, kind, fascinating person sat opposite you had breath to make you wish you’d come out wearing a hazmat suit.

In the Speciale’s case it was the noise, and I know even saying that is sacrilegious in some circles, it being the ultimate version of Ferrari’s final naturally aspirated engine, but after a couple of hours of it on the M4, I’d had enough. Sorry again.

But there’s something else going on here too: superb though it was on track, achingly brilliant on the right mountain road too, the point everyone seems to miss is that a 458 Italia was pretty damn splendid in both environments too, didn’t sound a lot worse and was a damn sight quieter and more comfortable. And while it seems the Speciale was rarer than the Scuderia (perhaps 1800 units), Ferrari still made far more than it did 360 Challenge Stradales, yet today you’ll pay around £300,000 for a leggy example, approximately twice what you’d pay for a really low miles Italia.

Ferrari 488 Pista

I’m not going to drone on about the Pista because so much of it is a cut ‘n’ paste job from the Speciale, without the overly loud exhausts. The Pista is an extraordinary car – I can remember driving one at Anglesey complete with carbon wheels, Cup 2R rubber and Ferrari special sauce in the tank and being frankly agog that something so closely related to standard roadgoing fare could do what that car did. But did I love it any more than I had the 488 GTB I’d driven on the same track the previous year? I don’t think I did.

The real difference was I remember thinking how fabulous a daily driver the GTB would be and how compromised would be the Pista in this regard, not just because of the ride and noise (both of which were more extreme but still comfortably within the bounds of acceptability) but because a chunk of boot space had been lost in pursuit of largely pointless downforce. Today you could pay around £280,000 for a clean, low miles example which, to me, highlights more than anything the value of a GTB in the same condition at half the money. The Pista also seems to be the most manufactured of the specials, with around 3500 built so far as I can work out.

So, 360 CS aside, the only real problem these machines have is being spun off cars of such extraordinary inherent excellence that they can seem compromised and expensive as a result. Of course they have historically sold to a sizable constituency of people more interested in their investment potential than driving ability, but that game is not what it once was, to put it mildly; and from a pure enthusiast’s point of view it is the standard cars that interest me more. Let’s see if Henry’s verdict later today will take another view entirely…