Ferrari 458 Italia

A magnificent machine is the least that could be said about this magnificent machine. There's an awful lot to like. The 458 Italia stands as Ferrari's most perfect car, if you ask me. Nobody did, but I'll let you know what I think anyway. Be warned, I carry a decidedly female perspective.

Predecessor

The Ferrari 458 Italia was born of the Ferrari F430. But it's better, faster, smoother, more comfortable, and more refined than the F430, which, by comparison, 'drives like a BMW.' Okay, that's not fair, but I did hear that said.

Mid-engine

Ferrari 458 Italia is powered by a 4.5 liter V8 engine, longitudinally mounted in the middle of the car. Read balanced on that spec, as the car goes where you point it, not more and no less. Both under- and oversteer seem to be gone. Poof! So aim where you want to go, because that's exactly where it takes you.

Ladies, for you, the longitudinal mid-engine mount means space for your pocketbook is competing with the engine and the engine won. Leave your lipstick case at home. You'll look marvelous just sitting in this car. Drive it and you'll never need lipstick again.

Power

That engine produces 562 horsepower at your command. It isn't bawdy, rumblingly loud, or rough, rather, oh so refined. Another opinion calls the engine sound a howl. It all depends on what you think is under the hood.

Getting to 60 miles an hour will take a mere 3.0 seconds. That's if you know how to drive this gentle lady with a beast under the bonnet. She's a beast, all right, but delivers like a lady who has it all.

Tranny

The transmission is double clutch, which makes paddle shifting smooth as a breeze. No letting up on acceleration while going up through the gears. And no pesky clutch. You get two of them built in--a Ferrari special as 'standard' with the 458.

Speedy

There are seven gears to get you to 202 mph, Ferrari 458 Italia's top speed if the CHiPs don't "get you" getting there. You'll meet the red line at 9200 rpm and have to slow down at that point. Shifting up to the next gear is always an alternative, although that option runs out at gear #7.

By the way, the gear shows up in a big yellow number in the middle of the instrument panel. No guessing about where in the gearbox you are.

Comfort

The seating is as comfortable as your custom-made Ricaro office chair. And, you can sit in it as long as you used to in the office late Friday nights. Creature comforts abound despite the racecar-for-real-roads intention of the design. Your 30-hour cross-country drive will feel like your 4-block trip to the beach.

Operations

You do need to read the owners manual to find out what the OPEN buttons open and other electronic operations. It's also in there about how to shut the radio off when somebody else turned it on.

Some of us prefer listening to the engine than to tunes, but there's an iTunes or whatever-you-call-it connector in the glove box for that. Counterintuitively, the OPEN button on the console opens the glove box, and radio OFF is not where you think. Like I said, read the manual for operating the widgets, preferably in Italian, per favore.

Oil check

For all of that modern technology and electronics, the 458 Italia still has a dipstick. Honest to goodness, you pull a pointy thing out of the engine to see whether enough lubricant is still in there. No newfangled gadgetry to check the oil other than the old-fashioned sexy wet way. Eyeballing it is your instrumentation. I like that.

What really matters

The best things about the Ferrari 458 Italia-after driving it, which is THE number one best thing-are the sounds, look, and smell of the car.

Traffic stops when a 458 pulls onto the road. Pedestrians stop walking to look. Cameras click and video-record when a 458 goes by. If you are the driver, you will believe earth left its orbit and you're driving a rocket ship clad in buttery Italian leather with stitching to match your shoes.

That's it, folks. That's all there is to like about Ferrari 458 Italia.