How To Spec A Ferrari 488 Pista?
Today ladies and gentlemen, we’re talking about the Ferrari 488 Pista. A sold out limited edition car, but at Romans International, we have two brand new delivery mileage examples for sale. As many of you will know, this is the lightweight track focus variant of the 488 GTB; spiritual successor to the 458 Speciale, 430 Scuderia and the 360 Challenge Stradale. In this article, we will focus on the specification, look at the different options you can get on the car, how much they cost and why they are important to have. Without further ado, lets take a look.
First up lets talk about the different paint options available on the Ferrari 488 Pista. You can get the no cost solid colours like Rosso Corsa which is the most famous Ferrari red. You have also got Bianco Avus, Giallo Modena; then you can get the metallic colours. One of our first two 488 Pista’s is available in Grigio Silverstone which is one of the metallic colours. There’s also Nero Daytona and Argento Nurburgring.
The next level up from that is the historical paints which is about £7,000 and this includes paints like the Rosso Dino and Grigio Ferro but if you want something truly special you have to go for the “Extracampionario” paint. These are the special paints that cost about £15,000. Our red car is one of them and the colour is called “Nuovo Rosso Formula 1 2007”. As you can guess this was the colour that was on Ferrari’s Formula One car in 2007. Ferrari specially designed this paint so that it would become more vibrant on TV screens. It’s definitely one of our favourite colours here at Romans International and one of the most special reds you can get. Obviously not everyone wants a red Ferrari, so the Grigio is still one of our favourites as it’s more understated and under the radar. We think any paint is going to work well on the Pista.
Stripe
The next most important thing you want to decide on is the stripe. The stripe is hugely important on the Pista because it comes right through the car starting off on the bottom of the front bumper, it comes straight through the S Duct on the bonnet and it goes over onto the roof and then ends up on the rear spoiler. All the stripes cost from £8,500 and you’ll have to pay extra to have them in a certain colours. You can also have a bicolour stripe or you can have a single colour stripe. Both the cars we have in stock have the bicolour stripe, so on the red car you have Bianco Avus on the outside and Blu Elettrico stripe through the middle.
On our grey car we’ve got Argento Nurburgring on the outside with the Nero contrast through the middle. If you do pick the single colour stripe, it basically means the same stripe but with the body colour in the middle. We have seen some cars which have the whole block in once colour too. Whatever colour stripe you choose is a subjective thing. You can of course spec it without a stripe but we wouldn’t recommend it as when it comes to resell, those cars will be devalued. Besides it can look a bit boring without a stripe. You would definitely have to get the two-tone exterior with a black roof, but for us the dual colour stripe is the way to go on this car.
For the first time ever you can spec fully Carbon Fibre wheels on a Ferrari. They do cost £14,000 and our red 488 Pista was originally odered with them but it meant the car was going to be delayed so the owner decided to go with these 20” forged wheels. What we would say about the Carbon Fibre wheels is that they look amazing but obviously if you are going to drive the car you are going to risk curbing one of the alloys or picking up stone chips and they are preety much impossible to repair and incredibly expensive to replace.
If you are going to drive the car, we would recommend going with the forged wheels. You can get them painted in the colour you want and the wheels on our red 488 Pista are painted in matt black. You can get silver or gold which you’ll probably see a lot of. Then you’ve got to choose your brake calipers. You are going to obviously see a lot of yellow brake calipers to match the Scuderia badges which by the way for the first time we’ve seen on a Ferrari are now free on the Pista; thank you Ferrari, very generous! Carbon Ceramic brakes are now standard and the Grey Pista has aluminium brake calipers, so you can choose whichever brake calipers you want. A small tip is that if you are going to get gold wheels, be very careful which calipers you get because the colours can clash.
Carbon Fibre Options
So once you’ve chosen the paint, stripe and wheels; the next thing you need to choose is the carbon fibre options. Now Ferrari again have been very generous by giving us quite a few carbon fibre features as standard on the 488 Pista. These include the Carbon Fibre Front Flaps, Side Air Splitters as standard which is very nice of Ferrari. What’s really remarkable is that Ferrari have also given us the entire Carbon Fibre Engine Bay as a standard feature. We remember when the 458 Speciale used to get the Carbon Fibre Engine Cover but you didn’t get the whole surrounding area as standard, you had to pay extra for that. Finally, you get a massive Carbon Fibre Diffuser which is an incredible feature to get for free.
Don’t worry; there are plenty of Carbon Fibre options you can pay for on top including the Rear Molding which runs across the whole rear of the car and a fantastic option to have in Carbon Fibre and believe it’s a £3,500 option. What’s even more expensive than that is the £5,500 Carbon Fibre Under Door Cover which runs across the whole side of the car. Moving to the front of the car, although you get the Carbon Fibre Flaps for free; the rest you do have to pay for. For example you have to pay for the Carbon Fibre Air Vents and Front Molding.
Other exterior options you can get include the Adaptive Front Lighting System. A £1,400 optional extra which is extremely beneficial if you are going to be driving at night and especially down country roads. They illuminate the road better and move around the corners with you synchronously; so it’s a great option to have if you are driving at night.
Another option you can get is to change the exhaust pipes. Our grey 488 Pista comes with the Titanium Sports Exhaust Pipes which come as standard. If you pay another £960 you can get the Black Ceramic Exhaust Pipes. The final option we would like to talk about from the exterior of the car is the cameras. For £1,500 you can get a Rear Camera and Fog Light. Pay £4,500 and you get a Front Camera as well which is a slightly controversial option because a lot of people think it ruins the aesthetics of the car because you get the four parking sensors in front and the front camera. Obviously a useful thing to have for parking but we can see the argument that it slightly takes away from the aesthetics of the car.
Interior Features
Now lets discuss some of the interior features and the different styles you can get inside the 488 Pista. Starting off with the seats, you can actually order single piece fixed bucket seats which are attached to the chassis, are non-adjustable and cost £7,200. It will take a brave person to spec those but most Pista’s will come with the Carbon Fibre Racing Seats. They are available in two different styles; the standard style seats with Alcantara on the exterior bolsters with 3D fabric through the middle and then the leather seat stripe that comes straight through the middle of the seat.
Alternatively, you can get the Daytona Racing Seats where you get the central Daytona stripes through the middle. Both styles work really well but probably more important is choosing the colours. So you can choose the exterior bolster colour, the inner colour and the central stripe colour. We love the Nero/Bordeaux on our grey Pista, equally the all black works really well with the red central stripe through the middle. The next thing you will have to choose is the colour of your stitching. Both our cars have red stitching which works really well. Next you will have to choose the colour of the Prancing Horse which is stitched on the headrests. If you really want a unique 488 Pista, you can specify to have a completely different coloured passenger seat to the drivers seat which is a throwback to some of Ferrari’s earlier racing days.
One thing you might want is the Racing Seat Lifter. The driving position is very good on the Pista and the seats do move forward and back and you can recline them but if you feel like the driving position is a bit low, you should spec the Racing Seat Lifter which means you can raise the seat higher.
Obviously this is a track focused supercar and even if you’re not going to take it on track it’s still nice to have a few track oriented options. Starting with the harnesses, the Pista is available with 4 point harnesses which are great to have if you are going to take it on a track. But even if you are not taking on a track and just going to take it for the odd blasts, it’s worth having them because they really add to the sense of occasion as they make you feel like you are in a race car. What we would say is if you are going to use the car regularly, it might be better to get the normal seats belts because they are more convenient and less hassle. Our Grey Pista comes with a fire extinguisher and the £2,200 Legal Roll Bar option. If you really want to spend some big bucks you can get the Telemetry and Track Cameras which is what our red car has.
The Telemetry and Track Inner Camera is a £9,000 option. Included is a Ferrari USB stick which you can plug into the car and what it does is it can upload and import all the different tracks from around the world and put them straight into the system. You can then record your laptimes, splits and it also analyses all the different performance metrics of the car. You get so much data so if you are really set on improving yourself as a driver and want to become a racing driver, it is an awesome thing to have. You get the inner cameras which are placed in front of the rear view mirror by the windscreen and one on the roof in between the seats which records the driver driving so you can analyse your driving techniques and assess how you can improve yourself as a driver.
Interior Options
As standard, you get plenty of Carbon Fibre features including Carbon Fibre Door Panels, Dashboard, Central Tunnel, Steering Wheel with LED’s and Sill Plate with the Ferrari badge. There are some options you can spec which you have to pay for. The first is the Carbon Fibre Inner Sill Trim and the big option to have is the Carbon Fibre Foot Plates which is a £4,500 optional extra and that replaces the aluminium foot plates like you’ll see in our Grey Pista. The Red Pista also comes with Alcantara foot mats to put over the Carbon Fibre foot plates.
You can for the first time spec matt Carbon Fibre instead of the gloss Carbon Fibre. We still prefer the gloss and the other decision you’d have to make is whether to spec Alcantara or Leather. This is a track focused car and traditionally Alcantara is what it’s meant to come with. The leather looks nice but doesn’t quite fit the character of the car so we would recommend sticking with the Alcantara which you’ll get on the dashboard, seats, roof lining and even on the little door handles. One interesting thing you’ll notice is that the passenger door has a different handle to the drivers door. The drivers door has an Alcantara loop which you can grab on to.
Another feature worth discussing is the Personalisation Pack which costs around £20,000 and it consists of some really special features. One of them is the Tricolore stripe on the steering wheel that’s painted under the lacquer. Our Red Pista also has a spectacular individual personal touch which includes a signed engine bay from the production line back at Maranello.
For £288 you can get Navigation and Bluetooth. This is a must have as you can pair up your phone and gives you the GPS in case you get lost. The other option you should definitely spec is the Integrated Audio System that gives you music and radio that doesn’t come for free. You’ll have to be a hardcore track user not to spec this. If you are a real music lover you can also get the upgraded Hi-Fi JBL sound system which is a £5,500 option. The other option which is really important to have is the Suspension Lifter which means you can press a button on the dashboard that raises up the suspension and makes it much easier to go over speed bumps and drive in the city. It’s become a really crucial option to have as some people refuse to buy a car without it. Even if you don’t need it, we would highly recommend adding it to your options list because it will help the resale value.
Finally it’s worth mentioning that if you require additional customisation and bespoke optional extras then you can go through the Ferrari Tailor Made program. This involves flying to Italy and Ferrari can help you to spec a totally unique car. For example, you can get different coloured Carbon Fibre, custom racing stripes and crazy leather combinations.
There you have it, that’s some of the different ways you can spec the 488 Pista. We’d love to hear from you on how you would spec your 488 Pista so please let us know and until next time we’ll just stay “Hasta la Pista”.
Check out the full video on How To Spec A Ferrari 488 Pista here: