Ferrari 458 Italia

Ferrari 458 Italia

I ruefully said goodbye to the Ferrari 458 Italia in Row U, Section 6, of an underground parking garage in Portsmouth, England, an ignominious close to a journey that had begun in Maranello
, Italy, and culminated with a thrilling dash up the hill at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in West Sussex: four days and four countries of driving bliss. I said goodbye to the incarnadine beauty and marched straight out to the hotel. It was like choosing not to look at a dear one lying in an open casket, preferring instead to remember the good times and all the grace. Having soared too close to the sun during the past four days, I now went forth without wings.

On the previous Monday, I was starting a routine week when the call came to get on a plane that very afternoon. Clearing customs in Bologna, Italy, fewer than eighteen hours later, I walked through the airport lobby and nodded at a man holding a Ferrari placard. He drove me past a Parmesan cheese factory and some balsamic vinegar producers on the way to Ferrari headquarters in Maranello. Here, I met photographer Paul Barshon, and we were off. Needing to share the new Italia with another reporter en route, we set out in a Ferrari California, the retractable-top spider. Following behind the Italia let me familiarize myself with the control layout that the two cars more or less share. As we tooled along the autostrada, I saw how Italy’s membership in the EU has caused the nation to get serious about traffic enforcement; we kept to a reasonable 75 mph, and the engine only snarled when we occasionally hurried around another vehicle. With the radio playing classic rock, it wasn’t so different from crossing Indiana. But before reaching Turin, we headed north-northwest, aiming the prancing horse on the hood for a point between the Matterhorn and Mount Blanc.

Heavy rain fell as we climbed away from the Italian city of Aosta, and clouds hewed to the ridgelines in Great St. Bernard Pass, which was still thawing out at the end of June; meltwaters hurried down to the Po River and thence to the Adriatic Sea. (Meltwaters beyond the summit flow to the Rhône.) The customs house was unmanned-another result of European unification-and we drove into Switzerland, passing through the Great St. Bernard Hospice, with buildings on both sides of the narrow E27. Nearly a millennium ago, Bernard of Menthon, archdeacon of Aosta, founded this place of rest and refuge for travelers, who previously had been prey to brigands. By the seventeenth century, a special type of mountain rescue dog had been put to work, taking the name of the place. We glimpsed a pair of the beasts along the road, presumably in training. We also greeted some young French cyclists who’d climbed to 8000 feet above sea level without appearing to breathe hard until they saw the Italia and the California together.

After oversleeping the next morning, Wednesday, I munched a chocolate pastry, drank half a cup of coffee, and guaranteed the front desk clerk that I hadn’t violated the minibar. Then we loaded photography cases into the deep well between the front wheels of the Italia, which would be ours for most of the remaining distance to Goodwood. The sun shone brightly, and people already bustled up and down the street in the resort town of Megève. (We had only been in the southwestern corner of Switzerland for two hours the previous evening before crossing another unmanned frontier, this one with France.) Sliding into the cockpit trimmed in voluptuous red and black leather, I touched off the direct-injected 4.5-liter V-8. The exhaust note resounded entrancingly off the buildings and slopes. Today’s journey would be independent, following an improvised route, starting on a high-country road. Not far along it, we stopped at a handmade sign that proclaimed the availability of goat cheese. I listened to clanking cowbells and twittering birds, meanwhile trying out lines in my notebook to describe the robust sonorities that issued alternately, depending on the driving mode, from the Italia’s three tailpipes. For example: how it would sound if Lady Gaga were deposited into a UFC cage match.

Soon afterward the road curved hard, and we beheld the vastness of Mount Blanc, a great Moby Dick of a mountain, endlessly white and imposing. We continued over a divide and entered Albertville, host city of the 1992 Winter Olympics. It was time for fuel. Compared with its predecessor, the F430, the Italia is 13 percent more efficient. Fuel tank capacity is reduced for weight savings, yet overall range increases. We put 17.2 gallons of sans plomb 98 into the car for a startling €95 ($116) and endured the cashier’s equally startling taunt: She preferred Corvette to Cavallino. Horses for courses, as the Brits say.

The V-8 features a continuously variable valvetrain and produces 570 hp, helping the Italia fire from 0 to 60 mph in 3.0 seconds. And roads in this part of the Rhône-Alpes afforded the opportunity to fire at will. A seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox manages the output as fluidly as Pablo Casals used to modulate the Bach cello suites. To make these instantaneous shifts, my fingertips were positioned on the huge paddle shifters. Heading for a hairpin turn at 110 mph elicited yelps of “Bloody hell!” and “Formula 1!” The exhaust boomed apoplectically through the outer pair of pipes, harrumphed sullenly on downshifts, and crooned with delight when the throttle was picked up in the apex. The enormous carbon-ceramic brake rotors with six-piston front and four-piston rear calipers easily quashed forward momentum, and the screeching that was a factor around town in Albertville wasn’t noticeable here. The Italia stayed remarkably flat under the hardest cornering I dared attempt, and the fat tires on twenty-inch wheels offered an excess of grip.

Ferrari 458 Italia

BASE PRICE: $230,275

Powertrain
ENGINE: 32-valve DOHC V-8
DISPLACEMENT: 4.5 liters (275 cu in)
HORSEPOWER: 562 hp @ 9000 rpm
TORQUE: 398 lb-ft @ 6000 rpm
TRANSMISSION: TYPE 7-speed dual-clutch automatic
DRIVE: Rear-wheel

Chassis
STEERING: Power rack-and-pinion
SUSPENSION, FRONT: Control arms, coil springs
SUSPENSION, REAR: Multilink, coil springs
BRAKES: Vented carbon-ceramic discs, ABS
TIRES: Michelin Pilot Sport K1
TIRE SIZE F, R: 235/35YR-20, 295/35YR-20

Measurements
L x W x H: 178.2 x 76.3 x 47.8 in
WHEELBASE: 104.3 in
TRACK F/R: 65.8/63.2 in
WEIGHT: 3274 lb
FUEL MILEAGE: 13/18 mpg (est.)
0-60 MPH: 3.0 sec
1/4-MILE: 10.9 sec @ 134 mph