Ferrari have just announced the much anticipated 488 Spider will be officially unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September of this year. Like the 458 Spider, the 488 Spider is essentially a 488 GTB with a retractable hard top – an exquisitely sexy, lithe Italian goddess with a 3.9L heart, with perfectly sized twins, a V8 figure, flat-plane crank pushing out 661 hp and 560 lb-ft through a seven-speed dual clutch transmission – the only difference is the Spider goes topless. Yoda have mercy. The Spider gains a few pounds over the hardtop model and thus, she takes 3.2 seconds to get to 60 mph, that’s .2 seconds longer than the hardtop.
Interestingly though, taking advantage of the new aluminum spaceframe, Ferrari claims the 488 Spider’s torsional rigidity has been increased 23 percent over the 458’s numbers. If the claim is true, then the Spider version of the 488 GTB promises to offer up even sharper handling than its predecessor, which was no slouch to begin with.
The roof takes just 14 seconds to retract and the same to raise back up, giving you instant access to the sonic ecstasy of the howling, snarling, frantic mid-mounted V8’s exhaust note. Separate from the retractable roof, sits a small glass rear window that can be independently lowered to three different positions to let more air (and sound) in when the top is up, and it can be used as a user customizable wind blocker when the top is down to keep everyone’s finely coiffed hair (or toupee) in place.
The 488 Spider is scheduled to go on sale sometime next summer and while no official pricing has yet been announced, expect it to be about 30k more than the hardtop model, but still slightly below the McLaren 650S Spider.
