Category: Exotic Sports 
Price Range: £118,500 to £172,500
Excitingly focused mini-Enzo looks, fabulously energetic engine, ultra-sharp but easy-to-drive handling, an F1 shift which works as it should, huge stopping power with optional carbon-ceramic brakes, every drive is a special occasion. Servicing is cheaper than for 360, too.
Thirsty on fuel, low nose easy to scrape, infuriating switching-off bleep, you can't open the glovebox with the ignition off
All the thrills of a 360 Modena but with tougher looks and the oversteer reined in. The smallest Ferrari is more desirable than ever.
Can the Ferrari 360 Modena really be five years old? The first all-aluminium road car from Maranello still seems lithe and modern, even if it does come across as a little bulky for the smallest Ferrari. But time moves fast and Ferrari has wanted to make the most of its Formula One prowess by linking it, not for the first time, to a road car.
So, bring on the new F430, a Ferrari which goes against the company's recent trend by not having a name after its number. Clearly derived from the 360 but mostly new, it features a new-generation V8 (the last one was 15 years old, derived from the 348 unit) which shares its bare block casting with the Ferrari-designed Maserati V8. But the engine uses the flat-plane crank usual in a Ferrari V8, so it screams rather than beats.
More torque, more power and more cubic capacity (4.3 litres) are the obvious features, four instead of five valves per cylinder a less obvious one. Even more obvious is the new body that clothes a modified version of the 360's semi-spaceframe aluminium chassis. Designed, as is usual for a Ferrari, by Pininfarina, it looks tighter and more compact than the 360 and borrows design features from illustrious other Ferraris old and new.
The twin air intakes on the nose are typical of a modern supercar, but here they are also redolent of the 1961 Formula One 'sharknose' Ferrari's snout. The side intakes just below the windows are like those of a 1965 250 LM, while the tail-lights, surfacing above the rear panel like emerging whales, mimic the Enzo's.
Technology is also borrowed, or so Ferrari is keen for us to believe, from Formula One. Most significant is the 'e-diff', or electronic differential, which dynamically and ultra-quickly alters the way torque is distributed between the rear wheels. It promises a revolution in the ease and confidence of driving a potent mid-engined Ferrari.
