488 Pista Spider Picture Thread

We had a visit to Maranello yesterday for our PS TM. As always, what a great experience! I know it is expensive but then this is a beautiful car and I figured it deserved some special treatment. I went with another client from our dealer who I only met on the trip - an extremely nice and especially funny guy. Watching someone else do their TM was a great experience and there was a whole lot of laughter over the course of the day. Ferrari customers are often criticised but the ones I have met have almost always been great people.

Anyhow, this is the car. The colour is a triple layer yellow (for some reason the files show it to be more orange than on the TM room screen and the swatch. It is definitely a richer yellow than Giallo Tri-Strato but it is yellow and not orange and looks beautiful). A while ago I did a thread on our 812 where we named our own grey colour after our first granddaughter. Well, the second one was born two weeks ago so the new colour will be named after her! I have five children so this could get expensive....

The interior is our alternate, I have not posted our preferred interior because they are not sure it is possible yet. We’ll see.

The TM people are so skilled and it is such a nice experience to spend a morning or an afternoon with them. If you can manage the cost (and you probably can), I can completely recommend it. We were in the new TM suite which is fantastic. In separate rooms we saw a Pista Pilota, a Pista Spider and in the actual TM room we used, the new Monza - a simply stunning car, very arresting.

For the 812 we used a theme from an old 166MM Barchetta. This time we went with a much sportier idea and followed our own theme. I was originally keen to go green but my wife and daughters threatened me with all kinds of misdemeanour if I did that! To balance the colours in our garage I didn’t want red (our Speciale is red), we have two grey F cars (when the 812 arrives) and the PS will replace a Blu Corsa 488 Spider so didn’t really want blue either. I can never seem to order white and the PS doesn’t seem like a black car to me - needs more ‘sunshine’ about it. Which really leaves (our first of any brand) yellow car.

Thanks to our dealer too. You read many horror stories about dealers from all brands on forums like this but thankfully our dealer has been absolutely great and I sincerely appreciate it - it really enhances the brand experience (and therefore the reverse must be true). Again, really nice people.

Main spec is glossy carbon outside, matte inside, triple layer Giallo Everly with Grigio Isabel stripe, Grigio Isabel matte wheels and centre cap. Interior is charcoal alcantara (which is in reality mid-grey to my eyes) interior with micro prestige seat edges in black. Kevlar floor and rear wall. Lifter, cameras, hi-fi and all that sort of thing.
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I think these pics look a little closer...
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Cheers guys!

 

It’s a stripe in the colour we named for our 812 - Grigio Isabel, a three layer, very heavy metallic. Incidentally, it’s the first time they have done that particular stripe. I arrived at it by adopting the widening element from the pebble beach car and crossing that with the twin stripe from the Pista coupe. I really like it.

 

I’ve been wondering about this question recently because of some other pieces of information proposed here on fchat. It seems there is a suggestion from people who have made quite accurate suggestions in the past, that the next 488, whether it be an unusual third ‘stopgap’ design on the current platform before two full replacement vehicles (V6 and V8) or a full replacement, either a V6 or V8 version, will be launched at Geneva 2019.

I already know this year is unusual in the wider car industry due to emissions issues (they changed the test in Europe following the VW scandal with not enough notice meaning manufacturers have been caught cold with existing product) and that may interfere with the Pista and Pista Spider run which ‘could’ be less than Speciale due to issues outside of their control. It has affected all the car brands that my company is involved with quite seriously. All the passenger car brands are introducing Hybrid products next year because of this. This emissions situation I know to be a fact and everyone is affected.

Lastly, my dealer has had something like 5 allocations. All of them have been given to VIP customers who have been asked to give up their coupe slots with similar stories coming from other VIPs at other dealers - makes it sound like a Ferrari instruction. So...imagine another allocation comes around. This means the dealer will be forced to go to the next on the list who will already have had a Pista coupe meaning that the second group get both and the first group don’t. That would be unusual behaviour for Ferrari.

There may, of course, be something I have missed in my logic. But if you add the three points together I would not be surprised if there was only one allocation of Spider and production for both variants will end next year - something Ferrari and the dealer have been more than hinting (which many have justifiably said “well they would say that wouldn’t they?”) We already know that Ferrari are overhauling their product line with a V6 and V8 mid engined car coming, the introduction of the Icona series and the addition of the Purosangue product line. It is not difficult to believe they are planning a shorter run for their oldest car which has more competition than before, when they have so many new models to launch and produce and are probably being forced into hybrid earlier than plan.

If this version of events were true, production would be around 500-700, or a little more than Speciale Aperta.