Ferrari F430 F1 Spider

Manek Dubash gets his top off in Modena's mighty, roofless supercar

It’s hard to know what can be said that’s new about this car. Ian Kuah reviewed the coupé last year and all his comments hold true. So what does the Spider add?

Be advised that you need to approach this machine with caution: it’s as much a piece of theatre as a car. Let me explain.

First impressions

I picked up the F430 Spider from écurie25’s premises in London’s Old Street with a little trepidation, as the prospect of threading a temperamental supercar through the capital’s heavy traffic appealed not at all. The situation wasn’t helped by my holding up a honking and hooting queue of traffic for three minutes while trying to persuade the F1 gearbox to select first. Of course, I’d forgotten to hit the brake pedal while pulling on the paddle-shift.

Panic over, we headed for the open road, just me and the car. It’s a surprisingly tractable companion, especially if you let the auto function take the strain of stop-starting in the city. The steering is light in town and the car feels very connected to the road, even at city speeds.

Then we hit the twisties. First step was to lower the lightweight fabric hood – itself a piece of theatre as the roof folds itself neatly into the space between the seats and that mighty, high-revving 483bhp 4.3-litre V8 under its glass and aluminium lid.

Aural theatre

Instantly, the car was transformed. The well-insulated roof muffles external noise very well, and helps the car shrink around you. Roof down, it’s another story and throttle-prodding becomes highly addictive.

Rising from a deep bass thrum at the 1,000 rpm idle through a hollow, visceral bark to a shriek at the 8,500rpm red line, Ferrari’s flat-plane crank V8 sings evocative songs any petrolhead would find hard to resist.

Floor the throttle at anything over 3,000rpm and the roar sharpens to a hard-edged bark, while from 4,500rpm onwards, the thrust from the 32-valve engine, delivering a stunning 114bhp/litre, catapults you and the car towards the horizon. Even then, there's another kick in the power curve at 7,000rpm, when most engines have given up, providing yet more impetus.

Licence-losing speeds are accessible within seconds – specifically, 60mph comes up in just 4.1 seconds from rest and it'll head for a top speed of over 193mph.

It’s then that the F430 F1's paddle-shift comes into its own. You can flick up and down the box with a flex of the fingers, the downshifts including a perfectly-timed throttle blip. And with the adjustability available from the five-position manettino, upshifts can be as lazy or as brutal as you like; feathering the throttle helps.

In effect, you’re the director of an aural theatre, one where easy gear-changes mean you shift up and down the ‘box at will -- just because you can, despatching slowcoaches with impunity. Driving fast was never so effortless.

Within the cabin though, peace (of a kind) reigns. A poly-carbonate wind deflector behind the front seats keeps the barnet pretty much in place, while the heater is more than adequate to warm the hands at speeds deep into three figures, even on the chilly day of my test drive.

Planted

The car, just 85kg heavier than the Berlinetta, feels planted and completely safe when cornering at anything other than insane speeds, with very little body roll or flex, certainly not enough to unsettle it in bumpy back roads. And if you need to hit the stoppers, the steel brakes fitted to ecurie25's car stop you tirelessly, even after driving the car hard.

In terms of handling, the Spider delivers razor-sharp turn-in, pointing itself into corners with no drama and little effort. It makes back-road hooning a positive joy – especially since the adjustable electronic suspension and E-Diff mean that the car easily compensates for less than expert driving. Just plant the right foot at the apex and the F430 leaps eagerly for the next bend. The steering weights up very nicely too, to the point where you hardly notice you're steering it: the F430 just goes where you're looking.

In terms of design, the main difference between the Spider and the Berlinetta is the higher lip on the engine lid which, allied to the chunky diffuser, both tuned in Ferrari’s wind tunnels, add some 150kg of downforce. The need to hide the folding roof means the rear haunches are higher than the coupé’s and arguably not as well integrated into the car’s shape. However this is a tiny niggle when you consider the overall look of the car, recalling as it does Phil Hill’s shark-nose Ferrari 156 racing car of the early 1960s.

Which one?

So would you buy the Spider over the Coupé? The potential for vandalism and the small styling changes aside, there’s little reason not to plump for the Spider over the hard-top.

You get the noise and the drama when you want it – what's more, you can hear it as well as the people whose heads you turn, which is one-up on the coupé. And, when you just want to cruise, it’ll do that too.

This has to be the most accessible, usable supercar that money can buy.