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Ferrari 458 Speciale already sold out for first year

Ferrari tends to sell its models out extremely quickly - its wait lists are the stuff of legend. That's especially true when the cars in question are of the fastest or most exclusive variety. If new reports are to be believed, Maranello has already sold the entire 499-unit production run of its new LaFerrari hypercar, and now Australia's Motoring is claiming that Ferrari has also filled its order book for the entire first year's production run of its new 458 Speciale.
For those unfamiliar, the 458 Speciale follows in a proud line of hardcore mid-engined V8 Ferraris in the footsteps of the 360 Challenge Stradale and 430 Scuderia. It's lighter, more powerful and more aerodynamically advanced than the 458 Italia upon which it's based, and just trails half a second behind the more powerful F12 Berlinetta (and the aforementioned LaFerrari) as the third-quickest road car ever to lap the Italian automaker's Fiorano test track. That means it's quicker even than the 599 GTO and Enzo.
Although we've yet to receive official word, we're expecting a sticker price approaching $300,000 - about a quarter more than the 458 Italia. But that doesn't appear to have stopped Ferrari from raking in the orders. Check it out in our substantially updated image gallery above.

Berger and Vettel swap F1 cars old and new at the Red Bull Ring

This weekend the Formula One circus heads to Spielberg. No, not the Hollywood director, but the town in Austria that's home to the Österreichring. Subsequently known as the A1-Ring, these days it's called the Red Bull Ring, which makes this weekend's revived Austrian Grand Prix something of a home race for the defending champion Red Bull Racing team. But long before that it was the home race of the sixteen F1 drivers that call Austria their home - not the least of them Gerhard Berger.
The only Austrian driver to have won a grand prix (ten of them, all told) but not a championship, Berger was a fixture of F1 racing in the 1980s and 90s, spending much of his career driving for Ferrari. He later ran Scuderia Toro Rosso for three seasons, during which time Sebastian Vettel won his first (and still the team's only) grand prix. So with the Austrian Grand Prix back on the calendar for this weekend, the two highly accomplished drivers headed to the Red Bull Ring for a little juxtaposition.
Gerhard rolled in with the Ferrari F1/87-88C in which he won the 1988 Italian Grand Prix at Monza (which was, incidentally, the same race that Vettel won for STR twenty years later under Ferrari power), and Seb in his championship-winning RB8. Then they switched off, giving the four-time world champion his first chance to drive a grand prix racer with three pedals. If you can't believe that, it's also (as far as we can tell) the first time, despite years of neck-and-neck competition and retention of some of the best drivers on the grid, that a Red Bull or Toro Rosso driver has driven a Ferrari F1 car, and vice versa. See how it went down in the video below.

FCA launches Ferrari IPO

It's been a long time coming, but the moment is finally upon us: Ferrari is hitting the stock market. Its parent company Fiat Chrysler Automobiles has announced the launch of Ferrari's initial public offering – almost exactly a year to the day since FCA launched its IPO (pictured above). And with it, FCA is starting the process of separating the Maranello-based exotic automaker and racing team away from the rest of the Italian-American industrial empire. The plan filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) calls for FCA – which owns 90 percent of Ferrari – to float 17,175,000 common shares on the New York Stock Exchange. That amounts to nine percent of Ferrari's common shares. Another 1,717,150 common shares (equal to 1 percent) will be offered to the underwriters of the IPO. The remaining 80 percent interest in the Prancing Horse company will be separated from the rest of FCA and distributed to the parent company's shareholders – of which Exor, the Agnelli/Elkann family's holding company, is the largest, holding a stake of about 30 percent. Currently registered as New Business Netherlands NV, the company is soon to be renamed Ferrari NV. And while it's nominally based, like its (soon to be former) parent company, in the Netherlands, there's no reason to anticipate at this point that Ferrari will move its operating headquarters away from its current and historic home in Maranello, on the outskirts of Modena in Italy's "supercar valley." The IPO is expected to be priced at or around $50 per share (give or take a couple of bucks), which would value the company at around $10 billion. Trading won't actually commence, however, until all the SEC filings are complete. At that point, the company will be listed on the NYSE under the symbol RACE. And whether you yourself are actually interested in trading in Ferrari shares or not, that could be one of the best parts of the announcement. FCA Announces Launch of Ferrari Initial Public Offering LONDON, October 12, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V. (NYSE: FCAU / MI: FCA) ("FCA") and its subsidiary New Business Netherlands N.V. to be renamed Ferrari N.V. ("Ferrari") announce today that Ferrari has launched its initial public offering ("IPO").