Matthew DeBord/BI
We warmed up to the offbeat color of our Ferrari 488 Spider.
- After testing the new Ferrari 488 GTB in 2016 and naming it a 2016 Business Insider Car of the Year runner-up, we got a crack at the Spider version.
- I drove the Ferrari to Lime Rock Park, a famous racing venue in Connecticut.
- The convertible Ferrari was the ultimate cruising machine and cruise missile when it wanted to be.
Ferrari is quite predictable when it comes to new sports cars.
For example, when the all-new Ferrari 488 GTB debuted in 2015 for the 2016 model year, it was swiftly followed by a drop-top version, the 488 Spider. We tested the 488 GTB in 2016 and were blown away, naming the latest mid-engined Ferrari supercar a finalist for our Car of the Year award.
A racetrack-derived 488 came next - the Pista. We wanted to get our hands on that speed machine at some point, but while we're waiting, Ferrari let us borrow a nearly $400,000 2017 Spider ($393,411, to be precise), and I took it on a pleasant jaunt to a legendary track in the Northeast, Connecticut's Lime Rock Park, former stomping grounds of the late Paul Newman, who was a serious race-car driver when he wasn't a world-famous actor.
Ferrari took a major risk with the 488, sacrificing the naturally aspirated V8 engine that had propelled the phenomenal 458 and replacing it with a twin-turbo V8 that produced a lot more power, but added a pair of turbochargers to a platform that had shunned them.
The result was well-received, after an initial period of pre-launch skepticism and worry.
Enter the Spider (which is just what Ferrari calls convertibles). It brings open-air motoring to the 488 experience and was perhaps the ideal vehicle to take on a journey through the lushly green and deliciously winding roadways of semi-rural New England.
Here's how it went.