When we drove the Ferrari 458 Speciale in Italy, we were immensely impressed with the car on so many levels. At the time there were some rumours about the possibility of an open top version, as Ferrari has also offered a Scuderia Spider 16M in the F430 range.
Now the company has released the Speciale A (the A stands for Aperta, meaning open in Italian).
According to Ferrari, this car is build to celebrate the multiple victories and awards the 458 has racked up over the past few years. Most notable of these are the WEC victories at races such as the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the 24 Hours of Daytona and the 12 Hours of Sebring.
Although there are rumours that Ferrari’s new boss wants to increase production, it is quite clear that this car won’t form part of that plan.
A production run of only 499 cars are planned, and it is as if Ferrari almost prefers that these need to go to collectors as its press release states: “dedicated to just 499 Ferrari collectors…”.
The hard top is manufactured from aluminium and takes a claimed 14 seconds to deploy or to retract. The Speciale A tips the scales at only 50 kg more than its fixed-roof sibling.
As is the case with the coupé, the Speciale A delivers 445 kW at 9 000 r/min from its 4,5-litre V8 engine. Torque delivery is set at 540 N.m at 6 000 r/min. Ferrari also claims the same explosive 3,0 seconds acceleration time from 0 to 100 km/h.
A Ferrari spokesperson told us that pricing and allocation for South Africa has not been confirmed yet, but we expect the Speciale A to set you back a few R100 000 more than the coupé.
This Ferrari will be unveiled at next week’s Paris Motor Show.
