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First Ferrari 458 Speciale A sells for $900k in Beverly Hills

The prospect of buying a new Ferrari convertible is by no means an affordable one, but prices can vary greatly. The California T, for example, sells for under $200k. The 458 Spider fetches over $250k. The new F60 America is said to have sold out at around ten times that much. But what about the 458 Speciale A?
We may have yet to receive official pricing, but one customer has paid a whopping $900,000 for the privilege of owning the very first one. Ferrari 458 Speciale A #1/499 was auctioned off at Beverly Hills City Hall on the occasion of Ferrari's 60th anniversary in America. The event, where the F60 America was also unveiled, was held in the presence of Fiat chairman John Elkann, Fiat CEO and Ferrari chairman Sergio Marchionne, Ferrari CEO Amedeo Felisa and vice-chairman Piero Ferrari.
Proceeds from the sale will benefit the American chapter of Daybreak, an Italian charity that has worked for the past 25 years to cure rare genetic diseases. The high bid tops that which recently won the first Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat - another extreme eight-cylinder performance machine from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles - although the Challenger itself sells for far less than any Ferrari does.

Leaked Ferrari presentation drops details on super hot 488

Ferrari convened a gathering of dealers and special customers recently, and presented them with some of the specs on that special, monstrous version of the Ferrari 488 that's been percolating in public for nearly a year. Someone in the audience snapped pics of a few slides, those pics made their way to Ferrari Photo Page, and now we can assemble the loose bolts of rumor into something approaching a real vehicle. Not just "a" vehicle, but the most powerful Ferrari V8 the company has ever made. Ferrari uses the 488 GTB as the base for its Ferrari Challenge racing series; now the Italian carmaker's returned the Challenge motorsport lessons to the production car. First, the coupe almost certainly won't be called 488 GTO. Ferrari owners in the Ferrari Chat forum have been wheedling their dealers for information, and several contributors to an 80-page thread attested that even the dealers don't know the name of the coupe yet. The presentation refers to it as "New V8 Sport Special Series." This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. The slides also note the "highest horsepower increase vs donor car for a V8 special series," so watchers expect more than 700 horsepower from the 488's 3.9-liter twin-turbo engine; production numbers come in at 660 horsepower and 561 pound-feet of torque. The engine making all that fuss is an evolution of the racing unit in the Challenge car, is ten percent lighter than the production car motor, and can produce a "unique track-like sound" – as if Ferraris haven't been doing that since the 1960s. The coming coupe gets more carbon fiber than ever seen in a Ferrari production car: the hood, bumpers, and large rear spoiler come in resin-soaked cloth, as do the dashboard, center tunnel, and the 20-inch wheels. Those wheels, dressed in Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 rubber, are 40-percent lighter than stock alloys. The cabin floor will be made of aluminum, with added lightness courtesy of less sound deadening and, thinner fixtures like side windows, and the omission of non-essential parts like the glove compartment. New S-ducts in front and a GTE-inspired rear diffuser help increase aero efficiency by 20 percent over the standard 488.

A weird end to a weird F1 season | 2016 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix recap

The 2016 Formula 1 season ended with a bang that came from a direction no one expected. Lewis Hamilton put his Mercedes-AMG Petronas on pole position and then got away clean to start the race. Teammate Nico Rosberg did the next best thing, lining up in second and following right behind Hamilton for most of the race. Other than Rosberg's wicked pass on Red Bull's Max Verstappen to retake second place on Lap 20, things stayed all quiet at the front. Come Lap 32 of the 55-lap race, however, observers began to wonder why Hamilton was driving so slow. The Brit, working every trick he could think of to win the Driver's World Championship instead of just the race, dogged it out front trying to push Rosberg back into the chasing mix of Red Bulls and Ferraris. Over the next 15 laps Hamilton's race engineer repeatedly radioed ideal lap times. Hamilton only occasionally hit the times until finally saying, "I suggest you let us race." When the one-stopping Sebastian Vettel blasted his Ferrari from sixth to third, nosing up to Rosberg's gearbox, Mercedes team honcho Paddy Lowe got on the radio to instruct Hamilton to go faster. Hamilton replied that if he wasn't going to win the championship he didn't care about winning the race. Hamilton repeatedly zoomed through the first sector to keep everyone behind, then clogged up the works through Sectors 2 and 3. The problem with his plan was that the Red Bulls in fourth and fifth couldn't get close enough to threaten the trio at the front; even if Vettel had got by Rosberg, Rosberg would still win the Championship with a third-place finish. As it happened, Rosberg finished second behind the disconsolate Hamilton. Vettel took third, followed by Red Bull drivers Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo, then the second Ferrari piloted by Kimi Raikkonen in sixth. Nico Hulkenberg took seventh, beating Force India teammate Sergio Perez for the last time as an intra-team rivalry. Felipe Massa closed his F1 career with ninth place in a Williams chassis that he got to take home as a gift from the team. Fernando Alonso scored the final point for McLaren, a touch of sweet for the team after the bitterness of Jenson Button retiring on Lap 12 with suspension damage. Rosberg's second place earned him 385 points for the season, enough to take the World Driver's Championship from Hamilton by just five points. Some have put the title down to Rosberg's consistency, others to his car's reliability.