RETURN OF SPECIALE

Ferrari has pulled out all the stops to make its latest road-racer nothing less than its most exciting production car ever. We get the inside line on the stunning new 296 Speciale

- YOUSUF ASHRAF

JUST HOW HIGH IS FERRARI AIMING WITH the 296 Speciale? 'The brief was to have the highest driving thrill ever on one of our cars; the biggest smile on the driver's face ever achieved with a Ferrari,' says chief marketing and commercial officer Enrico Galliera. Wow. In effect, that means building a car that's more exciting than the F40, F50 and LaFerrari. More exciting even than the most captivating Ferrari of them all in our view - the stunning, incomparable 458 Speciale, the only car to win eCoty unanimously and one we rank as the most significant launched during evo's lifetime. That's immense pressure to put on the 296's crisp, 250 LM-style shoulders, but through extensive re-engineering of its engine, chassis and aero, Ferrari is convinced it can deliver.

Challenge Stradale, Scuderia, Speciale, Pista... It doesn't get more evocative than Ferrari's line of mid-engined road-racers. Perhaps they haven't been as consistently world-beating as a certain other family of hardened track cars produced in Stuttgart, but at their best they're nothing short of spectacular. And the 458 Speciale is the pinnacle, the purest essence of what a Ferrari should be - more exploitable than the 360 CS and 430 Scud, and delivering a kind of manic thrill the 488 Pista never quite could. It's surely not a coincidence that for what is tipped as the most exciting Ferrari road car ever, the brand has chosen to bring back the hallowed Speciale name rather than continuing the trend of introducing a new one. It's the most memorable badge among Ferrari customers, too.

'We received calls from our clients asking, "When is the new Speciale coming?" Galliera says. 'So we thought, let's go with a name they are expecting.