Ferrari 458 Italia

The days of the Ferrari F430 have drawn to a close as the Italian carmaker unveiled its newest model during the 2009 Frankfurt Motor Show. The production will start in 2010 and if you’re lucky enough you might catch a glimpse of the exclusive Ferrari 458 Italia in the Swiss mountains.

Although the F458 Italia is the spiritual successor of the F430, the two designs have almost nothing in common. Ferrari has a long history within the F1, and it’s time that they used their amazing experience to create another great road car. The 458 Italia comes with a V8 engine that is rated at 578 horsepower at 9000 rpm and 540 Nm at 6000 rpm with 80% torque available at 3250 rpm. The engine sports direct-fuel injection, something that has never before appeared in Ferrari’s mid-rear engines. Even by Ferrari standards, the 458 Italia is ferociously fast, as it will be able to accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in a record time of 3.4 seconds, that is half a second faster than its predecessor, the F430. It features a seven speed gearbox with double clutch. On top of this, the new car will eat up less fuel than other models.

As expected, the design is the work of Pininfarina, taking after the Mille Chili concept car. Even for a supercar, the Ferrari 458 Italia is quite sleek and slippery, and it has a drag coefficient that could put many concept cars to shame. The car’s front will boast of vertical LED headlights and deformable winglets, and the body will be embellished with some beautiful sweeping creases. And let’s not forget that the interior was designed with input from Michael Schumacher, so it can’t get much better than this. The price for this new Ferrari bomb starts from around 170.000 euros.

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