The Wind In Your Hair At 315 Km/h
The Age
Saturday November 15, 2008
FERRARI owners generally aren't a difficult bunch to please - all they want is a car that's clearly both faster and better looking than the one sitting next to them at the lights. And unless the set of wheels next door happens to be a Bugatti Veyron - the benchmark supercar that's not legal to drive on Australian roads - then Ferrari's new and exclusive Scuderia Spider 16M is probably everything the well-heeled Ferrari buyer could possibly ask for.
Based on Ferrari's awesome F430 Spider, the special edition was bolted together by the Prancing Horse's racing arm Scuderia, ostensibly to celebrate Ferrari's victory in the 2008 formula one constructors' championship for a 16th time - hence the 16M tag. In a parallel universe where Lewis Hamilton failed in his last-gasp bid to win the F1 driver's title from Ferrari's Felipe Massa, could the 16M have instead been tagged the Scuderia Spider Massa?Whatever you call it, it's a quick piece of kit, having set the best time around Ferrari's Fiorano test track of any open-top road car. At 1340 kg - 80 kg lighter than the F430 Spider - and sporting a mid-rear-mounted, naturally aspirated, 4.3-litre V8 engine capable of 375 kW and 470 Nm, the 16M dead-heats a Porsche 911 Turbo to 100 km/h in 3.7 seconds, but narrowly pips the Porsche with a top speed of 315 km/h.Unique badging, exclusive carbon fibre-clad rollover hoops, a restyled front fascia with carbon fibre grille, revised rear diffuser and exclusive wheels are all part of the styling package that subtly sets the 16M apart from its siblings.Only 499 units of the special-edition Spider will be built, with just 10 to be made available in Australia and New Zealand when they go on sale in mid-2009. We don't expect the sticker price - likely to be somewhere north of $600,000 - will be a deterrent to buyers, after 63 orders were placed last year for Ferrari's even more expensive Scuderia Coupe. -- STEVE COLQUHOUN
© 2008 The Age