Friday 20 / September / 2024
Muscat: The stunning new Ferrari 488 Spider was launched in Oman by Alfardan Motors, the official importer of Ferrari in the Sultanate. The event took place at a remarkable reception held at the Al Bustan Palace in Muscat, says a press release.
The Ferrari 488 Spider is the latest chapter in Maranello’s ongoing history of open-top V8 sports cars and is Ferrari’s most powerful ever mid-rear-engined V8 car to feature the patented retractable hard top (RHT), along with the highest level of technological innovation and with innovative design.
The RHT solution ensures lower weight (-25kg) and better cockpit comfort compared to the classic fabric soft-top. Just like all previous spider versions of Ferrari’s models, this is a car that is aimed squarely at clients seeking open-air motoring pleasure in a high-performance sports car with an unmistakable Ferrari engine sound.
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Every area of the car has been designed to set new technological benchmarks for the sector: from the aluminium spaceframe chassis and bodyshell to the new turbo-charged V8, aerodynamics that reconcile the need for greater downforce with reduced drag along with the specific cabin air flow demands of an open-top car, and vehicle dynamics that render it fast, agile and instantly responsive.
Beneath the engine cover throbs the 3902 cc turbo-charged V8 that debuted just a few months ago on the 488 GTB. Its performance levels are nothing short of extraordinary: a maximum power output of 670 CV combined with maximum torque of 760 Nm at 3000 rpm send the 488 Spider sprinting from 0 to 100 km/h in 3 seconds flat and from 0 to 200 km/h in 8.7 seconds.
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This is also the most aerodynamically efficient Ferrari spider ever built, thanks to a series of complex aero solutions designed to guarantee optimal downforce whilst reducing drag, two normally mutually-exclusive objectives. Maranello’s engineers managed to achieve both goals simultaneously by introducing several innovative devices, including a blown spoiler and an aerodynamic underbody incorporating vortex generators.
Designed around the concept of the retractable hard top, the 488 Spider has a spaceframe chassis made of 11 different aluminium alloys combined with other noble metals, such as magnesium, each one used in a highly specific way.
Working with aluminium is important not only in functional terms but also because, by tradition, it demands every detail be treated sculpturally to express the technical excellence of the project through its beauty.
The introduction of a sophisticated simulator, similar to the one used by the Formula 1 Scuderia, allowed the human factor to influence the car’s design from the earliest stages by giving the engineers instant feedback from the test-drivers long before the first 488 prototype was physically built.
To make its dynamic behaviour even more engaging, the development team honed the car’s mechanical set-up in tandem with its electronic systems which are now fully integrated with the SSC2 side slip angle control system.
