Video: Carfection Takes on the Ferrari 488 Spider
Modena’s newest turbocharged drop-top supercar lives up to the legacy
Can a turbocharged Ferrari carry the Prancing Horse in earnest? It’s a question that’s dogged Ferraristi for years. The Italian builder has always earned its reputation by building around beautifully designed, naturally aspirated engines. Ferrari’s current mid-engine supercar option, the 488, eschewed that reputation with a twin-turbo 3.9-liter V8 powerplant. British YouTube channel Carfection explored the newest open-top Spider version of the 488 to see if, indeed, a turbocharged engine can carry the Ferrari torch.
The 488 replaces the outgoing 458 Italia, which was powered by a wailing naturally aspirated 4.5-liter V8. While turbos add considerably more horsepower—660 to the 570 ponies of the 458—the big concerns remain. Namely, the natural muffling created by exhaust-driven turbos and lag as the turbines spool up. Carfection host Alex Goy finds no such problems with Ferrari’s 488. The video treats you to an extended audio symphony from the 3.9-liter and like most modern turbochargers, lag is minimal.
Noise and minimal lag are one thing, but as a supercar manufacturer, the proof is in the performance for Ferrari. With the 660 horsepower engine pulling the 488 to 60 miles per hour in 3.0 seconds, one supposes it’s doing just fine. The dual-clutch transmission bangs through the gears and unsurprisingly for an apex-predator sports car, it’s mid-engine design handles magnificently.
The test 488 looks stunning in Blue Corsa paint and the overall appearance carries the “looks, status, and fun” endemic in a Ferrari supercar, Goy says. He does mention that the equipped Apple CarPlay is laughably bad, but what’s a real supercar without a few little gremlins. What is important, as Goy notes, is that modern design and the quantum leaps forward in turbocharging have brought on an unprecedented “era of super-fast, super-safe supercars.”
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