Ferrari is one of the few automakers on planet earth to have any news worth celebrating, these days but indeed the prancing horse posted a 54 million euro profit for the first quarter of 2009, its new entry-level California has a two-year waiting list, and the scuderia won its 16th Formula 1 constructor’s championship in 2008. To celebrate, Ferrari’s flashing the world with a topless version of the 430 Scuderia dubbed 16M and festooned with badges to remind the generations to come of Scuderia Ferrari’s auspicious racing record. Of course, in Italy, the number after 16 is unlucky, and so far the 2009 F1 season has been less auspicious, but for now let’s bust out the prosecco and toast better days.
Functionally, the 16M is a Scuderiafied Ferrari F430 Spider. It gets the same low-back-pressure, higher-compression (11.9:1 versus 11.3:1) V-8 good for 503-horses and 347 pound-feet (versus the F430’s 483/343) bolted to the same F1-Superfast2 transmission capable of shifting in 60 milliseconds with torque interruption of about 40 milliseconds. The chassis setup is also nearly identical from the standard carbon-ceramic brakes (15.6 inch front, squeezed by six-piston calipers, 13.7-inch rear with 4-piston calipers), wider 19-inch tires on unique rims (including an optional new design for the Spider), harder and lower springs, and the race-tuned adjustable damping, F1 Trac, and E-Diff systems. The ability to engage the most aggressive driving modes on the Manettino switch while setting the suspension to its softer setting to help keep the tires pressed to the pavement on bumpy stretches is probably even more useful in the Spider.
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