Liberty Walk Ferrari 458 Spider w Armytrix Exhaust System LOUD REVS!

The £198,856 open-top version of the so-nearly-perfect Ferrari 458 Italia coupe. Thing is, this could go two ways. Either the extra exposure – to the elements and the 458’s powerful singing voice (surgically re-tuned for the alfresco concert) – intensifies and completes Ferrari’s finest driving experience. Or the additional weight and reduced rigidity do just enough to break the spell.

Technical highlights?

The arrival of a drophead 458 was a given. For there not to be one would have broken with a Ferrari tradition. But most of us expected it to be a soft top. Instead, the 458 Spider is the first mid-engined Ferrari convertible with a folding metal roof. Actually, it’s aluminium and 25 kilos lighter than the F430’s fabric affair. Nippy, too, opening and closing in just 14sec. Inspired by the elegant and simple roof design created for the 575 Superamerica, it folds in two sections and stows very space efficiently beneath the engine cover. The whole mechanism is so well packaged it even allows enough room for a couple of custom made suitcases to be placed on a shelf behind the seats to supplement the relatively generous front boot capacity.

There’s only the slightest increase in aerodynamic drag with the roof in place (from a Cd of 0.33 to 0.335) and nothing awkward about the way it looks. If anything, the Spider’s reconstituted back end is more handsome than its hardtop sibling’s, despite losing the transparent engine cover. In its place is a painted cover with vents which, although plainer, lends a tougher, more coherent look to the rear aspect, especially in conjunction with twin buttresses which rise to flattened points just above the seats’ head restraints and provide roll-over protection as well as helping to manage the airflow over the cabin with the roof down – further tailored by a little glass window between them that can be raised and lowered to suit and has an ‘optimum’ default position.

All told, the Spider weighs only 50 kilos more than the coupe (for comparison, opting for an Audi R8 Spyder adds around 100 kilos to the coupe’s weight) and, as you might expect, Ferrari’s engineers have made various mechanical adjustments to finesse the car for its perceived clientele: slightly softer damper rates (though the spring and anti-roll bar settings are unchanged), a gentler throttle map (more on this is a moment) and specific induction and exhaust tuning to re-master the 458’s V8 soundtrack for maximum aural gratification. In cold statistics, the Spider hardly gives anything away to the coupe. Its 198mph top speed is 4mph down and its 3.4sec 0-62mph time just a tenth slower.