Ferrari Scuderia Spider 16M news - Spider from Mars - 2008

In all the excitement of Mr Hamilton’s big day out in Brazil, it might be forgotten that Ferrari won the F1 constructors title at Interlagos last week.

In celebration, the boys from Maranello have created this: the Ferrari Scuderia Spider 16M. That ‘16’ denotes Ferrari’s total number of F1 constructors championships, but we can’t help thinking it might have been called the Scuderia Spider Massa had Timo Glock managed to be a bit quicker round those last few corners…

Anyhow. Take a few minutes just to admire how freakin’ awesome the Scud Spider looks, because once you start to delve below the surface, things get a bit confusing.

See, the fixed-roof Scuderia is all about weight loss – 100kg lighter than the stock F430, and all the better for it. But with the roof off, the engineers have had to put a load of weight back on, so the Scud Spider weighs just 10kg less than the standard F430.

But it does weigh 80kg less than the F430 Spider, so that’s something.

And, in fairness, it’s hardly slow: powered by that legendary 510bhp, 4.3-litre V8, the Scud Spider will hit 60mph in just 3.7 seconds – a mere tenth slower than the hard-top Scud and a full point-four quicker than the F430 Spider – and top out at a mighty 196mph.

That makes it the quickest open-top Ferrari ever: an accolade, we reckon, that should be more than enough incentive for all the oil barons surely beating down Ferrari’s door this morning. No doubt the carbon fibre roll hoop, Ferrari-branded iPod and relative exclusivity – a mere 499 will be built – won’t hurt, either.

So, the Ferrari Scud Spider: bizarre, pointless oxymoron or massively desirable drop top? We can’t decide. We think it might actually be both…