I drove the 458 for 250 miles on dry rural roads outside Houston, which unfortunately is nearly flat with lots of straight roads. Here are some notes from the day.
As with my previous review of the McLaren 12C (https://medium.com/@philipsu/drive-impressions-mclaren-12c-spider-e2a02c794904), I’ll mostly focus on pragmatic notes around usability, as professionals have amply covered all the standard performance aspects of the vehicle. And I’ll mostly compare it with the 12C, given that they’re closely-priced mid-engined performance cars.
Engine
The 9,000 rpm redline of the naturally-aspirated 458 felt much more visceral than the 12C, even though the 12C beats the 458 in stats. But 0–62 mph in 3.4 seconds is still nothing to shake a stick at — and furthermore, just when you thought the engine was likely already working its hardest, you discover you’re only at 6,000 rpm, with another 3,000 screaming rpms to go before redline. Whereas the McLaren was full of effortless thrust, powering easily from 70 to 110 mph, the Ferrari sounded like a whole lot of fury was happening every time you downshifted and surged forward. You got all this without needing to open the little window to the engine compartment, and without a sports exhaust. The aural experience made the drive much more enjoyable than the 12C, as it always seemed that you were pushing limits and rearing to go faster.
I engaged Launch Control once, with warm tires on a smooth, straight road in 50-degree weather. It was every bit as thrilling as I had expected, though in honesty it’s a bit of a parlor trick on public roads. I suspect it’s the type of thing that you might do a few times when you first buy the car, or perhaps when giving a friend a demo ride, but not the type of thing you do more than a few times a year. Interestingly, as the car accelerates through the first few gears, you need to do a lot more active steering than I would have expected — there were a few moments in there where things felt a bit squirrelly. Not exactly torque-steer bad, but certainly engaging enough for you to pay full attention to everything that’s going on.
Drive
The thing you notice right away in the 458 is its steering. The immediacy of the turn-in is remarkable; you get a strong sense that the wheels are, for a lack of better words, directly connected to the steering wheel and to your hands. I preferred that the 458 did not have the obvious progressiveness of the 12C’s steering, so that sharp and gradual turns both felt predictable even from the first moments of driving. I did not push the car hard enough to get a sense for how it steers near the limit.
The 458’s paddle-shift transmission can lurch a bit in slow traffic — not as badly as the 12C, but still noticeably so. However both upshifts and downshifts feel smooth under reasonably aggressive driving. As with the 12C, the 458’s downshifts don’t feel as instantaneous as the 991’s, though all three vehicles’ transmissions are so fast as to make this nearly a moot point.
Oddly, when shifting automatically in Sport mode, the 458 feels sluggish to enlist lower gears. Race mode is more aggressive, but Sport mode is surprisingly tame in its shifting repertoire. A 991 base Carrera, in contrast, will change its shifting strategy fairly quickly in response to more aggressive use of the accelerator pedal. The 458 in Sport auto felt disappointingly slow to respond to pedal input — at times frustratingly so, e.g. when a passing opportunity arises.
Rear visibility is much better than the 12C and the Lamborghini Diablo. The large rear window allows for a wider degree of view. Interestingly, the fact that the door window extends generously behind the driver makes it easier to see out of the rear quarters on both sides. The mirrors are easily adjustable to cover all blind spots.
Ride
With the 12C and even the 991 Porsche heavily praised for compliant rides, I expected the 458 to feel rougher, but was pleasantly surprised by a ride which I felt was comfortable across a range of surfaces, including some very harsh construction pavement in the heart of Houston highways. The ride never felt overly firm even after 5 straight hours of driving. I daily-drive a 981 Boxster in CA, and would not say that I could easily tell the difference in ride quality; the 458 does not feel harsh at all, even in Race mode with standard suspension.
Finish and Interior
The 458 interior is decidedly less well-finished than the 12C, and much less accomplished than the Porsche 981/991. Joints in the leather seams are only slightly better than the Lamborghini Diablo, looking distinctly low-volume, or perhaps euphemistically, “lovingly hand-crafted.” The roof, funny enough, had a finish that implied a sunroof, but in fact was just a way to piece together a roof liner with smaller chunks of leather. The air conditioning control is remarkably downmarket, feeling like a 20-year flashback.
The standard seats lacked side support compared with the 12C, 981/991 Porsche, and Diablo SV, though they were plenty comfortable for hours of driving. The steering wheel was adjustable in all the standard directions, though its length of travel was noticeably less than the 12C’s and the 981/991.
Practicality
The 458 attracts far more attention than the 12C, so you need to keep track of your blind spots fairly actively in urban areas.
The seating position is very low to the ground. Compared with the 12C and the Diablo SV, the 458 was far easier to get into and out of because its door sill is narrower and closer to the base of the tub. In fact, it felt no harder to enter and exit than a standard car.
Parking was easier compared with the 12C, both because of better over-hood visibility as well as great rearward visibility. I could back the car confidently out of parking spaces even without a reverse camera.
The 458 I rented did not have a navigation system. I also did not test its sound system. The tripmeter and other little digital gizmos felt equivalent to the 12C’s, but not as polished as Porsche’s. (Of significant note, the 12C’s system froze on me once or twice, requiring complete reboots even while driving (!); this did not happen with the 458, and has never happened with the Porsche).
Overall
I roll my eyes when Chris Harris and others toss out words like “emotional” to describe the 458 and “clinical” to describe the 12C, but I can see how people would walk away from the two cars feeling that they’re competing for completely different dollars. Whereas the 12C effortlessly reaches high speeds while remaining rock-solid stable, the 458 feels like bridled mechanical fury, ready to explode.
The 458 is, in my opinion, a far more beautiful car and a more engaging drive. There is the very real issue, at least for me, that it feels ostentatious and showy. But if price was not a concern, nor the attention, I would much rather own a 458 than a 12C.
Both are way too much car, at least for an amateur driver like me. But whereas I walked away from the 12C certain that I would never buy one, the 458 frankly warranted a second glance of impulsive consideration.
Just a brief glance.
Then I returned the keys, got into an S2000, and happily rowed the sweet gears of a well-balanced lightweight Honda home.
