Sixteen is a perfect square, in terms of integers. It’s the age you can get a driver’s license. The number of ounces in a pint. Joe Montana’s number. The fourth number in the ominous number sequence fromLost. Or, to a Ferrari Formula 1 fan, it is the number of constructor’s championships the manufacturer has won since the award was created for the 1958 season.
An Open-Top Tribute
To celebrate the 16th championship, which it won last year, Ferrari built the 430 Scuderia Spider 16M, an F430 drop-top with all the go-fast parts of the 430 Scuderia. Those bits include a higher-compression version of the 4.3-liter V-8 making 503 hp and 347 lb-ft of torque (80 percent of which is available at 3000 rpm), a race-tuned suspension, serving-dish-sized carbon-ceramic brakes, and the F1-Superfast2 automated manual transmission that enacts a one-two shift in 60 milliseconds. Just as in the 430 Scuderia, the interior is stripped of all comfort features. Carbon fiber and aluminum line the cabin. There is no carpet, just diamond-plate-style aluminum on the floor, accented by exposed welds. The carbon-framed seats are covered in weight-saving cloth and offer only manual fore-aft and seatback angle adjustments. The doors are skinned with carbon fiber as well. The only concession to luxury lives in the dash: a horizontally docked iPod touch, the sound from which is delivered to occupants via six speakers (yup, there’s a sound system on a track-ready Ferrari). But it’s a miracle you can even hear the thing, because this is quite possibly the loudest roadgoing car we have ever driven. With the engine going full-tilt, there is nothing but a visceral high-pitch scream, a sound which practically begs the driver to flog the car a little more. But be warned, after just one wide-open-throttle run through the first three gears, we quickly had the Polizia in hot pursuit.
Keep Reading: 2009 Ferrari 430 Scuderia Spider 16M - First Drive Review
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