FERRARI 430 SCUDERIA
The Scud blended technology and savagery to winning effect
TIME CHANGES MOST THINGS. WHEN THE 430 Scuderia was launched, its cutting-edge tech made it seem the smooth, digital foil to Porsche’s more analogue 997.1 GT3 RS; the future of performance driving, locked in a tussle with a nearperfect exponent of the past. The showdown took place during ecoty 2007, and Stuttgart triumphed, just, relegating the Ferrari into second place, yet no one was in any doubt that the Scud was one of the all-time great Ferraris.
There was that screaming F136 Ferrari V8, offering 530bhp and 347lb ft of torque (compared with 483bhp and 343lb ft from the standard F430); the ‘F1 Superfast 2’ version of the single-clutch gearbox, said to switch cogs in just 60ms, in itself comparable to Ferrari’s F1 challenger from just a few seasons before; and, most of all perhaps, two further key elements: electronics, and the involvement of a certain Michael Schumacher.
The 430 Scuderia marked the point where Ferrari’s mastery of chassis electronics passed from expert to guru level. By combining the operation of the E-diff and the F1-trac set-up with the brain for the engine and gearbox, it was the first Ferrari to offer superlative dynamic abilities with an accessibility and friendliness that defied the numbers in question.
But it was Schumacher’s involvement in its development, not least his request for a ‘bumpy road’ mode that allowed maximumattack everything bar damping, that will be one of the car’s lasting legacies. Given the fate of the multiple world champion in more recent years, there’s an added poignancy to having his paw-prints on the car’s gestation.
However, the last time I was fortunate enough to drive a Scud, it wasn’t really any of the above that stuck in mind. It was simply that it weighed nearly 100kg less than an F430 at just 1350kg, and the fact that it has a stonking, naturally aspirated V8 that revs to the heavens and above 3500rpm emits a shriek that’s a heavenly choir to enthusiasts of the internal combustion engine. It feels small(ish), gloriously direct, and still patently very fast, yet wieldable and enjoyable on our roads in a way that often escapes its more capable, faster but larger descendants. It seems daft to think of the Scuderia as somehow analogue, especially in light of my opening paragraph, but there’s something to that, given its relative unambiguity.
The market doesn’t quite seem to share this view, because at the moment you can pick up a low- mileage Scud for around £170,000 (higher mileage cars in left-hand drive can be had for around £120,000 and upwards) when a 360 Challenge Stradale of similar mileage and condition can be £200,000 and the Scuderia’s successor, the 458 Speciale, a quarter of a million quid or more. The Stradale is arguably more evocative and raw, the Speciale even more impressive, but I know I would never be disappointed with a Scud, and I’m pretty sure I’d prefer one to most of the current crop of supercars.
‘I’D PREFER ONE TO MOST OF THE CURRENT CROP OF SUPERCARS’