Ferrari F 430

The Ferrari F430 is a high-performance sports car produced by the Italian automaker Ferrari to succeed the Ferrari 360. It debuted at the 2004 Paris Motor Show. European left-hand drive sales began in November 2004, but right-hand drive sales did not start until Spring 2005, and the United States did not get the F430 until Summer 2005.

The body has been redesigned to be more curvaceous and aerodynamic. Although the drag coefficient remains the same, downforce has been greatly enhanced. A great deal of Ferrari heritage is found in the car: at the rear, the Enzo’s tail lights and interior vents have been added. The car’s name has been etched into the Testarossa-styled driver’s side mirror.

Along with a restyled body, the F430 features a 4.3 L V8 petrol engine derived from a shared Ferrari/Maserati design. This new powerplant is a significant departure for the F430’s line: The engines of all previous V8 Ferraris were descendants of the Dino racing program of the 1950s. This fifty year development cycle comes to an end with the entirely new 4.3 L, the architecture of which will later replace the Dino-derived V12 in most other Ferrari cars. The engine’s output specifications are: 360.4 kW (490 hp) at 8500 rpm and 465 N·m (343 ft·lbf) of torque at 5250 rpm.

Car and Driver magazine found the car’s performance worthy of the Ferrari heritage, and recorded a 3.5 sec 0-60 mph acceleration run in the F430^[3] This makes it the third-quickest Ferrari road car ever made, after the Enzo and the 599. That being said, the 3.5 second 0-60 run was made on a European spec car, which has launch control, a feature designed to help launch the car from a standing start at high RPM’s. Much like the E-Diff and the manettino, the launch control is a technology borrowed from Ferrari’s Formula 1 racing program.^[2] The launch control is unavailable in U.S.-spec F430’s, presumably due to liability issues.