FERRARI 458 ITALIA
Steve Rockingham has owned some iconic road and rally cars, but never a genuine slice of mid-engined exotica – until now
‘THE WAY THAT NATURALLY ASPIRATED ENGINE REVS, IT’S FANTASTIC. AND THE NOISE!’
I’M A LUCKY FELLA, I REALISE THAT. EVEN BEFORE I picked up the Ferrari at the end of the spring, I’d owned a string of great road cars and some truly iconic rally cars, too. I didn’t have many car-related itches left unscratched, but there was one. I’d never owned a truly exotic mid-engined Italian supercar.
I wasn’t convinced I needed one in my life – until evo’s Adam Towler, an old mate who often gives me a steer on what to add to my stable, came on the phone. He knew I was considering a 458, but sensed I was wavering. ‘Just do it!’ he said. ‘You won’t regret it.’ So, what’s the verdict two months later? Was he right?
Before we get to that, a quick bit of background. To begin at the beginning, my love of cars came not so much from my dad – although as a chartered accountant he had a succession of nice cars, mostly Rovers and then one of the very first Range Rovers, which was just the coolest thing when I was a kid in the early ’70s – but more from my grandfather, who was massively into cars. As a youngster I’d always be out in the garage with him and he’d show me how to change the oil and plugs and so on. Even now I do quite a lot of the servicing on all of our cars.
Meanwhile one of my parents’ neighbours was into rallying and he’d take me out on road rallies and we’d do some marshalling, and then at 14 I started navigating – it was the earliest age you could hold a competition licence! Eventually we’d start doing the odd stage rally and pretty soon I was completely hooked.
Then at 17 I got my first car, an Alfasud, which was just a cracking little car – five-speed gearbox, disc brakes all round, made a great noise, handled like it was on rails – and it almost fizzed away in front of your very eyes. I realised my thousand-pound investment wasn’t going to last very long if I didn’t get out of it, so I sold it and bought an Escort RS2000. That was when the fun really started. As well as using it for work and shopping I was also rallying it, but now as a driver. I had RSS for years.
Work-wise, I trained as a quantity surveyor. My first company car in my mid-20s was a Peugeot 205 GTI, which was pretty cool, and that led to various other cool road cars – RS Turbo, Sierra Cosworth, E36 M3 saloon… Eventually I started my own construction company, which has allowed me to indulge my passions for both road cars and rallying.
I first caught the collecting bug when an ex-stig Blomqvist Lotus Sunbeam came on the market and I managed to get it for a figure you could only dream about today: £17,000. That was my first works car. After that I bought an ex-works Triumph TR7 V8, which I still have to this day. And in a moment of madness I bought an ex-colin Mcrae Ford Focus World Rally Car, which I used for a few events,
but it’s a really difficult car to run: so complicated and so expensive – way out of proportion with the fun you were having. Never mind fuel at £4 a litre, how about £250 for an oil filter, or £12,000 for a clutch!
Next I bought an ex-mcrae Impreza WRC, the 1998 Rally of Portugal winning car. I had so much fun with that. It’s a car anyone could drive and it actually makes you look like you know what you’re doing. I’ve also got an ex-tommi Mäkinen Impreza – the car in which he drove his last rally – and a Group A Peugeot 309 GTI that Richard Burns did the ’91 RAC Rally in, I believe his first factory drive.
So I’ve managed to build up a nice little collection. And I still drive the rally cars, though more often in demos these days, including the rally stage at the Festival of Speed. They’re like a ticket to all the best events.
Road cars have included a Ford RS200, an M5 V10 Touring, which was just fantastic, and I’ve currently got a Gen 1 997 GT3 RS in orange – I wanted green but I couldn’t find one, but otherwise it’s just about perfect!
And then I started thinking about a Ferrari. I’ve never had a Ferrari before and it was just one of those boxes you really need to tick.
I’d noticed that 488 prices were coming down, while 458s were staying pretty much level, but the 458 just looked prettier to my eyes, and the naturally aspirated engine was important, too. The last naturally aspirated Ferrari V8 had to be the one to have.
I think it might become a bit like the F355 – they were ‘the one to have’ for years. I haven’t bought it as an investment, but if it doesn’t lose a lot, that would be great. In the end, though, I just really fancied one!
So I trawled through all the ads, as you do, and looked at a couple of cars at main dealers, but they didn’t have quite the right spec. I wasn’t hung up about having a red one, or a Spider, but it did have to be the right colour/trim combination – I wanted a dark interior – and the right options.
Then a couple of months ago I spotted this 2015 car at Tom Hartley’s and I loved how it looked in Canna di Fucile (‘gunmetal’ in English, and apparently an old Ferrari racing colour) while the spec was awesome: front axle lift, carbon driver’s pack, which includes the LEDS on the steering wheel, full leather, carbon splitters and back panel, shields, sports exhaust, just about everything you could want. And just 7800 miles and one owner. It would have been a £230,000 car new; I paid £160,000 for it, which included a warranty, and it’s still under the Ferrari service plan, which runs for seven years, so it’s got at least another service in there.
I did toy with the idea of a Mclaren, but I heard a few stories about things going wrong with them. And as soon as I drove the Ferrari I just fell in love with it. There’s something lovely about that naturally aspirated engine. The way it revs, it’s just fantastic. And the noise! It’s almost worth it for that alone.
It’s a similar thing with the GT3 RS. I had thought that one would be so much better than the other that it would be obvious which to keep,
but in fact they’re so different I can justify keeping them both. They’re probably not far apart on outright performance, and in fact the Ferrari is a bit more civilised and easier to drive, but having something supercarshaped is definitely a novelty: the GT3 RS is still relatable to other 911s, whereas the 458 Italia is genuinely exotic and different. I’m 58 now, and I’ve decided it’s all very well working yourself into the ground, but life is for living. I’m lucky enough to be fit and active – touch wood – but I know it won’t always be so easy for me to jump in and out of cars like these, so I’m making the most of it while I can.
The Ferrari won’t do a huge mileage – special days out, events, maybe the odd road trip. But it will be used and enjoyed – sometimes just going out and having a drive for the sheer hell of it. Somehow I can’t imagine doing that in a Tesla.