Ferrari F430

Ferrari doesn't care to admit there's a horsepower war going on out there. But when its entry-level 360 is making 390 horsepower and just across the Milan-Bologna highway the Lamborghini factory is turning out the Gallardo with 500, something probably had to be done. That something is the F430. Its all-new engine is up to 4.3 liters, from which it kicks out 483 rampant horsepower. And to keep it in check, the suspension gets a host of revisions, most significantly an electronically controlled differential that Ferrari developed for its Formula 1 cars, only to find it was so beneficial it was outlawed.

Formula 1 remains a talisman at Ferrari. You get an engine designed by engineers who have worked on F1, using titanium rods and five valves per cylinder like the 360's but with all components new. The gear changer is a sequential paddle-operated device, again introduced to the road-car world by Ferrari after its F1 experiences. The factory's wind tunnel shares time between the road car and race teams; by its efforts, the F430 gets an extra 200-odd pounds of downforce at top speed with no drag penalty. Optional, and fitted with shattering effect to our test car, are a set of carbon-ceramic brake rotors. Another F1 technology-- see a pattern emerging?

If the greenhouse, doors, and roof are 360 heritages, the rest of the outer skin is new, not just to satisfy our neophilia but to help suck the car to the road and to bring more cooling air to the nasal radiators and combustion air to the cylinders. That last job is done by the intakes atop the rear fenders, a visual reminder of the mid-1960s 250LM. The car's extruded-aluminum structure is all-new aft of the firewall for the latest rear-crash standards. There's also a new front-crash structure, plus new frame bits to boost overall stiffness. Inside the cab, a more finely tooled leather dash faces the occupants. We had the optional carbon-shelled lightweight semi-race seats--standard fit is a more cosseting chair design with electric adjustment. Overall weight is up by about 120 pounds. The extra power more than compensates.

The engine is faster wherever, whenever you want. The capacity increase brings a notable muscling-up of the torque curve, meaning you no longer need to obsess on the redline but can reserve an extra portion of mental bandwidth for the other (reasonably urgent) tasks required in operating a Ferrari. This significant character change is reinforced by the new soundscape. Where the old unit had many voices depending on revs and load, culminating in a hard-edged yowl that could drill concrete, the new one sings a deeper baritone, more rhythmic and rising homogeneously in excitement all the way to its roaring 8500-rpm limit.