2016 Ferrari 488 GTB review – Roadshow

Oct 2016

The Good Basically everything.

The Bad Certain driver niceties like adaptive cruise and Android Auto would round out the offerings.

The Bottom Line One of the best driving experiences on the planet.

When you have a car that’s as good as the Ferrari 458 was, it’s easy to imagine all the things that could go wrong in developing its successor. Just heaping on more power would be the natural inclination, but blindly adding more oomph is a great way to ruin an equation.

Forced induction also seems like an inevitable next step, but slapping a couple of turbos onto one of the sweetest V8s ever produced could just as likely end in disaster.

Ferrari’s 488 GTB has the looks to match…
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In other words, you’d be forgiven for expecting the 488 GTB, Ferrari’s 458 follow-up, to be something less than stellar. But, I’m very glad to report that is not the case. The 488 is everything you could want, nothing more, nothing less.

The formula

661 horses at your command.

Brandon Cheely

By and large, the 488 fits right in Ferrari’s middleweight supercar design template, with a mid-mounted V8 driving the rear wheels plus seating for two in a package wrapped in low-slung and aggressively styled bodywork. It’s a formula that’s worked for 40 years now, and the new GTB doesn’t break it.

But that’s not to say the 488 doesn’t change the variables. This time that V8 gets some help inhaling thanks to a pair of turbochargers, enabling the 3.9-liter engine to deliver 661 horsepower. That’s very nearly 100 more than the 458, a car that nobody in their right mind said was slow.

That bodywork has been significantly refined as well. Though the cars look very similar, the 488 has 50 percent more downforce than the old 458, despite having less aerodynamic drag. Ferrari’s designers used a series of tricks to pull that off, including ducting air from the massive fender vents through the rear of the car out between the rear tail-lights. An active rear diffuser that lowers at speed also helps keep things flowing.

And then there are the driving dynamics, all tied together by the most advanced electronics package this side of LaFerrari. That includes the latest Side Slip Control system, SSC2, tuned to more subtly intervene and keep you feeling like a professional while also keeping you out of the ditch. With this new version, SSC2 extends its reach into other systems in the car, able to tweak the electronic differential and the active dampers, meaning the GTB responds and adapts as a cohesive unit, helping you go faster.

Most importantly, you almost never feel it.