It's a well-known fact that Il Commendatore was very clear on his Prancing Horse aspirations; sell road cars only to fund the race cars. And despite Maranello's recent shift in ambitions — no Le Mans or ALMS effort, no GT1 contenders — from track to street, Enzo is surely safe from turns and tumbles in his coffin.
Because Ferrari has just continued its 1993 Challenge legacy with the latest iteration in the shape of the majestic 458 Italia.
The fifth in the line of Ferrari's "gentlemen-drivers series" Challenge cars — after the 348 kicked it off, followed by the 355, 360 and 430 — made its world debut during the company's annual dealer meeting. Flanking the F430 in next year's Ferrari Challenge Trofeo Pirelli (now extended to include Asia-Pacific), the new berlinetta comes only a few months after the road car's debut at the Frankfurt show.
A key in this racing series is the identical preparation of each car, giving emphasis on driver skill rather than machinery. So every 458 Challenge boasts an iniezione diretta (we really like saying that) 4.5-litre V8 which is strictly in production trim, and consequently delivers 570bhp at 9,000 revs per minute.
Naturally, you don't make the transition from road to circuit in stock form, so the mods that have been made are on the tranny and electronics side of things. The 458's dual-clutch F1 ‘box has been calibrated for more torque available at lower revs, while the standard electronic differential makes its first appearance on a Ferrari track-only model.
The next step for Maranello's ingegneri (there's another good one…) was to put the car on the motoring world's equivalent of the Atkins diet: the body panels are thinner gauge, while carbon fibre and Lexan — a polycarbonate resin thermoplastic — feature more prominently around the interior and exterior. Solid aluminium bushings, stiffer springs, single-rate dampers, centre-nut 19in racing rims, larger dimension Pirelli slicks and a 30mm lowered ride height also make the cut. Stoppers are Brembo, natch, like the ones which debuted on the mental 599XX, meaning you can probably affect the earth's rotational pull when stomping on the middle pedal.
And lastly, rather cleverly, Ferrari is bringing this racing series to every manner of driving talent, with the first adoption of its F1-Trac system for a Ferrari Challenge model. To make set-ups easier, there are two built-in specific track-biased calibrations — wet and dry — making this 458 Challenge a "turn-key" racer.
So don't you dare think about rocking up at Monza next year with your "ageing" 430 and staying competitive, because the 458 laps Fiorano two seconds quicker than its predecessor. What's more, at the wheel of this thing you can take Variante Ascari pulling 1.6Gs.
That ought to put a smile on your face, whether you like it or not.
