The new Ferrari 488 Pista Spider is *fast*

Upon sampling the Ferrari 488 Pista for the first time, Chris Harris noted how it is “dynamically the best car Ferrari has ever made, and its powertrain sits at the heart of its success”.

Well, now you can sit even closer to that powertrain: welcome everyone, to the new Ferrari 488 Pista Spider, a convertible version of dynamically the best car Ferrari has ever made. After initially being unveiled at the Monterey car week festivities in California’s Pebble Beach, it's now arrived in Europe, at the Paris Motor Show. And as you can see, it has a stripe. But we’ll come back to that.

So, that powertrain. Recipient of three 'Best Engine' awards, it is a 3.9-litre twin-turbocharged V8 with 711bhp and 568lb ft of torque, exactly like the coupe. It’ll also go from 0-62mph in 2.85s, exactly like the coupe. 0-124mph takes 8s (vs 7.6s for the coupe) while top speed is still 211mph.

It’s quite fast enough then. Ferrari actually reckons this is lighter than the Coupe, weighing in at 1380kg (vs 1385kg) if you option “lightweight contents”. Without them, expect a small penalty thanks to that folding hard-top. Inside, there’s plenty of carbon fibre, Alcantara, aluminium foot plates in place of carpet and a strap to pull the door shut in place of an actual handle. Details, details.

There’s also something called ‘Ferrari Dynamic Enhancer’, which is a new lateral dynamics control setup, said to make “on-the-limit driving more intuitive, controllable and predictable”.

New 20in diamond finish alloys make a debut, with the option of one-piece carbon fibre wheels that are 20 per cent lighter than the forged ones. Oh yeah, the stripe: it spans the length of the car and expands at the end of the rear wing, said to “recall the movement of the airflow”.

“The new Spider offers the highest level yet of technological transfer from the track to a road-legal drop-top car,” Ferrari explains. Sounds… speciale, no?