Ferrari 488 GTB hangs on to ferocious bark
Engine almost too powerful for its own good
It’s the sound. Long after the blood-red livery has become nothing more than a magenta splotch in your iPhoto library, long after the sensation of rapier-like steering and limpet-like grip have faded into memory, you’ll remember the sound. Loud, brazen, occasionally bullying and always insistent, the sound of a Ferrari 458 is music to a gearhead’s ears.
To those not raised to worship piston and valve, all this talk of internal combustion as song must seem a little too precious, descriptors like “ripping silk” or “exhaust music” just so much tripe. It is, after all, simple explosion, rapid-fire and incredibly precise to be sure, but mere detonation of hydrocarbon and air nonetheless.
And yet, it is that mere noise that has tifosi — Italian for “fans” but most liberally applied to the followers of Ferrari — all aflutter. You see, despite all the romantic notions we journalists like to ascribe to V-12 engines, it is a V-8 that is the most sonorous motor in Ferrari’s lineup.
Oh, the FF’s V-12 makes a delightful bellow, the F12 Berlinetta fairly bursts with aggression and the LaFerrari pumps out far more horsepower. But if you want the full, hair-raising, spine-tingling Ferrari experience, it’s the 458’s flat-plane-cranked 4.5-litre V-8 you desire.
And it’s come under threat by those overbearing environmentalists and their governmental lackeys. Turbocharging, now the pragmatic automaker’s solution to the performance/fuel economy conundrum, has taken root even in Maranello. The F40 supercar was turbocharged back in 1987, but the California T was the first modern-day cruiser to gain a couple of turbines. Now the mid-engined 488 follows suit.
While turbocharging does indeed have the desired result — upping the ponies while reducing fuel consumption — slotting a couple of fans into your exhaust tract does have the desultory side-effect of muffling the sound of said internal combustion. In the average four-door sedan, this might actually be a positive thing. But in a Ferrari, not so much, as the tifosi fret.
They should have more faith. The new, twin-turbo 3.9-litre V-8 — similar but not identical to the California T’s power plant — sounds different, but in the 488, the addition of turbocharger and intercooler has not erased its Ferrari-ness. At low speeds, for instance, the almost metallic reverberation of the 458’s exhaust has been replaced with a Bugatti Veyron-like hiss of twin turbos spooling up their bad intentions. At mid revs, the 488 comes on like a very angry Mercedes-AMG GT that grew a pair. And then, unlike most turbo V-8s — save perhaps McLaren’s — the 488 spins even harder, that flat plane-crankshaft heartbeat finally resonating more clearly above 6,000. There’s less of a shriek to be sure, but it remains distinctly Ferrari nonetheless.
The only problem with this internal-combustion-as-symphony is that the 488 is still too powerful. Yes, I said that out loud. Too powerful.
It’s like this: the 458’s naturally aspirated engine needed to be revved hard to render its supercar power. True stupidity required 6,000 rpm and more, hence you were always bathed in its irascible song. The 488, meanwhile, is almost 100 horsepower stronger and endowed with a positively steroidal 163 more lb.-ft. of torque, and needs not those revs. Even dedicated hooligans will find that 5,000 rpm easily suffices — and that’s still some 3,000 rpm shy of the full Pavarotti. Unless you have the police on speed dial, you’ll never know the best of 488 until you take it to the track.
Indeed, the paring of turbo boost in the lower gears has seemingly little effect on performance. Thanks to the incredible response of the titanium-aluminum bladed turbochargers and quick-shifting seven-speed dual-clutch transmission, the 488’s 661 hp are sufficient to propel the 1,475-kilogram GTB from zero to 100 km/h in just three seconds.
All that turbo trickery has other benefits as well. One of the common complaints of typical turbo sports cars is that the fat mid-range bulge of turbocharged torque generates indelicate throttle response at the most inopportune times — for example at mid corner when you’re on the very edge of traction. All that diminishing of torque is Ferrari’s way of recreating a naturally aspirated power curve from a turbocharged engine.
It works … kinda. Power production is indeed more linear, but there’s so much of it that there’s really no way to truly tame this beast. Make even a small mistake with the loud handle and the 488 will perform a quick triple Lutz … at 160 km/h or more.
Thankfully, Ferrari has further upgraded the Side Slip Control System, its electronic traction nanny almost on par with the Corvette Z06’s Competition Mode.
The one thing that truly differentiates the 488 from its predecessor — besides the overwhelming power — is a complete rethink of the 488’s steering. The way Ferrari’s GT development test driver, Raffaele de Simone, explains it, “the new 488 is so much more agile naturally, that we were able to dial back the steering ratio for greater stability, yet retain the lightness through tight turns.”
Whipping around Ferrari’s Fiorano test track, the 488 did feel more stable through the high-speed sweepers while still proving plenty handy through the hairpins. Think of the new 488 as 458 meets McLaren 650S, with only the good genes of each passed along.
Foibles are few. Ferrari promised that, with a GPS navigation system upgrade, the 458’s cranky mapping was a thing of the past. What a load of crap! The new system just gets you lost faster. At one point we were a train of four 488s, all U-turning and circling around Maranello like four scarlet ducklings searching desperately for their mother duck.
And Ferrari promises that the 488’s magneto-rheological suspension has been recalibrated for comfort and support. Somehow the former got waylaid, as the 488’s dampers, even in this mild GTB guise, are freakishly firm. Princesses who can feel peas will not be pleased.
But electronic glitches and suspension harshness will not put off Ferrari tifosi. The only thing that matters is the music and, more baritone though the song may be, the 488’s soundtrack is still fully operatic. Same as it’s always been. Same as it always will be.