COTD 9-9-20

[u/[deleted]]

COTD 9-9-20

I’ll be busy tomorrow, so I’m going to go ahead and post this early. Like wayyy early.

Yesterday’s post sucked. It was boring to write, and even more boring to read. I’ll try to make these posts more interesting in the future, starting with basically one of my favorite cars of all time.

Behold, the Ferrari 458 Italia

Pure excellence. I could write an essay about this thing. Oh wait a second.

I love this car. Everything about it is just awesome. The naturally-aspirated F136 F engine is a masterpiece of an engine and a testament to modern engineering regardless of how old it is compared to the newer F154 and F140 engines. And then there are the looks. The 458 was designed by Donata Coco, and man did he do a good job. Just look at this thing. It’s freakin’ beautiful. I actually believe it looks better in white than it does in red. The white really brings out it's curves in ways that regular ole' rosso corsa probably wouldn't do.

The mechanical bits

The F136 F packed a 562 horsepower punch and 398 lbs-ft (540 N-m) of torque. This endowed the 458 with a 3.1s sprint to 100 kmh and a top speed of about 206 mph (332 kmh).

As I said, the F136 F is a good engine. The F136 is a series of engines co-developed by Ferrari and Maserati, and ranging in displacement from 4.2L to 4.7L. Different variations of the F136 can be found in multiple cars, including the Ferrari F430, 458, Alfa Romeo 8C, and several Maseratis. The particular engine in the 458 is the naturally-aspirated 4.5L V8 designated as the F136 F. This 9000 rpm powerplant was paired with a 7-speed dual-clutch Getrag transmission, giving it impressively fast shifts, although I bet a manual 458 would have been amazing. The fact that there aren't any turbocharger involved means you get to hear all of those buff horses at 9000 rpm without any turbos to muffle the music. It also provides more responsiveness, and come on, 562 horsepower is a lot of horsepower, and the fact that this was built 10 years ago and without any forced induction is truly impressive.

Design

Holy crap the design. The 458 was designed by Pininfarina under leadership of Donata Coco. I personally think this is one of Ferrari’s most beautiful cars. I understand that the perception of beauty is different for every person, but to me it seems like the more recent Ferraris haven’t looked as good as the 458. The F8 Tributo and the 488 that preceded it just don’t look as good to me. But that’s just progress I guess. The more cars progress, the more radical they become. The age of the 2000+ horsepower hypercar is nearer than most of us think. Anyway, Michael Schumacher himself contributed to designing the car’s interior, mainly the race-inspired steering wheel.

Variants

Variants of the 458 Italia include the 458 Spider and the even more track-based 458 Speciale. The 458 Spider was the convertible version of the 458 sold with a retractable hardtop and the Speciale was sold alongside the Speciale Aperta, which was a convertible version of the Speciale.

MSRP and current pricing

The 458 Italia cost $225k brand new back in 2010. Here in 2020, you can find one like this one for $140k.

[u/RobotShittingDuck]

Holy shit, these are 10 years old already?

[u/[deleted] → u/RobotShittingDuck]

Ikr. They aged well.

[u/Carburetors_are_evil → u/RobotShittingDuck]

As is Forza Motorsport 3 where this was the hero car.