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Hot Wheels loses Ferrari diecast contract to Chinese company

If you're anything like this writer, chances are you've got a diecast model or two kicking around the house. And if one of those models replicates a Ferrari, chances are it's made by Hot Wheels. The Mattel brand secured an exclusive contract from the Maranello automaker in the late 1990s, but the latest word from Hemmings has it that Ferrari has ended its partnership with Hot Wheels and awarded it instead to the May Cheong Group. Unless you're an avid diecast collector, you may not have heard of May Cheong, but you may have heard of its brands Maisto and Bburago. Both brands are longtime players in the model car market, but it's the Bburago part of the deal that's particularly interesting. Founded in Italy, Bburago made a name for itself largely due to the scale Ferrari models it made back in the day. But when the Prancing Horse marque awarded the exclusive contract to Mattel, and with increasing competition from the Far East, Bburago collapsed. May Cheong swept in and scooped it up, and now the Italian model brand, along with its onetime rival Maisto, will be producing diecast Ferraris once again. Whether Bburago will use any of its old tooling to resume production of Ferrari scale models or start from scratch with all-new equipment remains to be seen, as does the matter of whether either it or Maisto will be able to produce the same quality of models as Hot Wheels has with some of its higher-end offerings. Like most collectors, this writer's looking forward to finding out. Looks like it's time to buy another display case.

Ferrari launches upgraded 458 Challenge Evoluzione

Want to drive an eight-cylinder, mid-engined Ferrari? Assuming you can get your lucky little hands on one, you can drive a 458 Italia, 458 Spider or new 458 Speciale on the street. But the real action is where the road ends and the racetrack begins. Ferrari's Corse Clienti division offers versions for GT2 and GT3 racing, for Grand-Am (likely to be revised for the new United SportsCar Championship), and, of course, for its own Challenge racing series.
It's the latter version that Ferrari revealed it was upgrading last week, and now it's made its debut at the tail end of the rain-soaked Finali Mondiali event at Mugello. Although Ferrari only released limited details and just the one new photo, the new 458 Challenge Evoluzione upgrades on its predecessor as promised with obvious aerodynamic enhancements.
Those upgrades are "aimed at making the car even more driveable" for the customer racers who take part in the series, and seem to bridge the gap (at least visually) between the previous 458 Challenge and the more extreme racing versions that have to contend with more competition than its own kind. The upgrades are being rolled out as a kit that will be obligatory in the various Challenge series that will kick off around the world next year.

Ferrari IPO may turn out to be good news for enthusiasts

Sergio Marchionne's strategy to spin off Ferrari from FCA and make the Italian automaker a publicly traded company has been met with ire from a vocal contingent of enthusiasts ever since rumors about the plan began to surface a few years ago. Some of these particularly pessimistic automotive pundits have voiced fears that with stockholders in the mix, it would not only spell the demise of the exclusive Italian supercar maker as we know it, but would in fact "ruin" the company. Call me dense, but I fail to see what the issue is. That isn't to say that I don't understand what's causing the fear. When profitability becomes a higher priority for a brand that's historically relied on exclusivity to keep its products in the highest echelons of desirability, there's a high potential for internal philosophical conflict. And then there are concerns about the sorts of products that Ferrari might develop that aren't the high-performance sports cars that the brand is known for. But individuals with those apprehensions seem to forget that Ferrari has already lent its name to a multitude of things that are not LaFerraris, 488 GTBs, or F12 Berlinettas, including clothing, headphones, and even laptops. But let's assume for a moment that the core anxiety is about future vehicles – including the unspeakable notion that Ferrari might develop an SUV. Why wouldn't Ferrari build an SUV, especially after seeing how incredibly successful that endeavor has been for Porsche? I think it's likely that Ferrari will put engineers to task creating some sort of crossover or high-rolling cruiser with room for the whole family at some point in the near future. And why wouldn't it, after seeing how incredibly successful that endeavor has been for Porsche? After all, the Cayenne accounted for more US sales in 2013 than the Boxster, Cayman, 911, and 918 combined, and it only gave up about a thousand units of sales last year to make room for the Macan crossover, the latter of which Porsche sold nearly as many of as it did Boxsters and Caymans. People want these vehicles, and they're willing to pay quite a bit of money for them. If we use Porsche's recent trajectory as a foreshadowing metric for what's in store for Ferrari, the future actually looks pretty good. After all, those SUV sales keep plenty of cash in Porsche's coffers for the low-volume projects that we enthusiasts love, like the 918 Spyder and the 911 GT3 RS.