Ferrari's V8 icons: new 488 GTB vs classic F355

Progress is a moot point in Maranello. Engineers measure it empirically, and in those terms 2016’s Ferrari 488 GTB administers a ginormous Gucci loafer-clad kicking to 1994’s F355. It’s harder, faster, stronger, better made, much better equipped, more efficient, and, when it comes to active and passive safety… well, let’s not even go there. You can switch off the ABS in the F355, and it’s your bottom and twitching right foot that control traction.

The fact is, the 488 GTB is such a monumentally impressive engineering achievement that criticising it involves picking nits so tiny they’re practically subatomic. Ferrari is an R&D powerhouse these days, not just a carmaker, so as well as being the company’s mid-engined entry point – if you can call a base price of £183,964 that, and most buyers add an average of £50k in options – the 488 also strategically cherry-picks some of the tastiest elements from other, unicorn-rare Ferraris.

Photography: Simon Thompson

This feature was originally published in issue 285 of Top Gear magazine.

It gets the steering rack and dampers from the 458 Speciale, an evolved version of the Side Slip Control chassis electronics that debuted in that car, and the brakes come straight from the LaFerrari.

It also parachutes some of the LaF’s active aero voodoo into what passes for the mainstream in Maranello, and serves the whole lot up in a body that makes up in lip-smacking on-road presence what it lacks in old-fashioned aesthetic grace.

It is a deeply, outrageously fast car. We could be measuring the progress of performance from 355 to 488 in 20 light years rather than normal run-of-the-mill ones. It’ll hit 60mph in three seconds flat, and surges forwards with a sustained ferocity that’s close to uncomfortable.

More importantly, it also vaporises in-gear increments, dropping you into a vast vat of torque no matter which gear you’ve just selected. Double-clutch gearboxes may lack romance compared to an open-gate manual, but it’s not hard to admire the work that’s gone in.

It’s also a car you can slip into and just drive. It’s a low-speed doddle. Historic Ferraris, including the F355 you see here, can be histrionic; for example, you can forget about selecting second until the gearbox oil is warmed through, and the driving position is as daft as popular lore suggests. The 488 GTB is just a normal car in this regard, and locates the driver at the heart of the action. Mid-engined cars often have hopeless rear-three-quarter visibility and cavernous blind spots. This one doesn’t.

The biggest nitpick concerns the layout of the instruments; the main display is spot-on, but the auxiliary ones should have been refused planning permission for the extensions on either side, and, no matter what Ferrari says, they don’t get any easier to use with familiarisation.

Ditto the buttons festooned on the steering wheel, with the exception of the manettino. That we have got the hang of, 12 years since it first appeared on the F430.

Twiddling it gives you control over the chassis, of course, and it’s here you’ll find the biggest evolutionary jump. The ride quality is unbelievably good, thanks in no small part to the magnetic dampers, which is handy because before long you’ll be leaning on this car in a way that would have defied belief 20 years ago.

You arrive at corners so quickly it’s like you’ve fallen through a hole in the space-time continuum rather than merely accelerated up to them. Modern Ferraris have ultra-fast steering, so the 488 can feel over-sharp at first. Odds-on you’ll over-drive the car until you get used to it. At which point, it’s so intuitive you think your way around bends.

None of this happens in the F355, and the things that do happen do so at a noticeably less frenzied pace. But the old car makes you question the true meaning of progress in three key ways.

First, the engine. Its free-breathing 3.5-litre, 40-valve V8 might be down almost 300bhp on the 488’s twin-turbocharged 3.9-litre unit, but the noise an F355 makes once it’s into its stride is quite simply quintessential Ferrari. It’s way, way down on torque, compared with the 488, but you’re too busy smiling to notice.

The throttle has a lovely, long travel, so the power arrives in a linear, seemingly endless rush. The 488 butts up against the red line much earlier, riding a software-manipulated torque curve. It sounds pretty awesome, but the F355 is more awesome still.

Then there’s the gearbox. I once almost moved amiable former Ferrari CEO Amedeo Felisa to the point of fury by banging on about the F355’s manual box. He insists that DIY gearchanging distracts you from getting the best out of the rest of the car, but it’s one of my favourite parts of the Ferrari experience.

In an F355, every corner or roundabout demands properly coordinated driver input, and has the potential for theatrical satisfaction. Any numpty can drive the 488 quickly.

Finally, well, just look at it. Although it was the first Ferrari to feature a fully flat underfloor, the F355 was also the last to appear before aerodynamics overwhelmed aesthetics. It’s a beautiful, normally aspirated, mid-engined Ferrari with a manual gearbox.

Check out the way the market currently values these things if you want an idea of how some people prefer to look back when it comes to going forwards...