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Ferrari 458 Speciale is our Frankfurt fantasy [w/video]

This is the Ferrari 458 Speciale, and while its name might underwhelm, its performance and lineage more than make up for it. The successor to the proud line of hot, higher-performance, mid-engined Ferraris like the 360 Challenge Stradale and 430 Scuderia, the 458 Speciale is blessed with a 596-horsepower, 4.5-liter V8 and the ability to skip to 62 miles per hour in three seconds. It also comes with a not-so-subtle racing stripe, which we like.
Thanks to a scarcely believable curb weight of 2,844 pounds, special Michelin Pilot Sport cup 2 tires, and a few tweaks to the electronic diff, the Speciale is quite a dancer as well. Naturally, Ferrari is showing off the newest member of the scuderia at Frankfurt, and we made it a priority to see it in person. We've got a full gallery of live images above, a video and stock photography from Ferrari down below, and our original coverage of the car, from August, right here.

Berger and Vettel swap F1 cars old and new at the Red Bull Ring

This weekend the Formula One circus heads to Spielberg. No, not the Hollywood director, but the town in Austria that's home to the Österreichring. Subsequently known as the A1-Ring, these days it's called the Red Bull Ring, which makes this weekend's revived Austrian Grand Prix something of a home race for the defending champion Red Bull Racing team. But long before that it was the home race of the sixteen F1 drivers that call Austria their home - not the least of them Gerhard Berger.
The only Austrian driver to have won a grand prix (ten of them, all told) but not a championship, Berger was a fixture of F1 racing in the 1980s and 90s, spending much of his career driving for Ferrari. He later ran Scuderia Toro Rosso for three seasons, during which time Sebastian Vettel won his first (and still the team's only) grand prix. So with the Austrian Grand Prix back on the calendar for this weekend, the two highly accomplished drivers headed to the Red Bull Ring for a little juxtaposition.
Gerhard rolled in with the Ferrari F1/87-88C in which he won the 1988 Italian Grand Prix at Monza (which was, incidentally, the same race that Vettel won for STR twenty years later under Ferrari power), and Seb in his championship-winning RB8. Then they switched off, giving the four-time world champion his first chance to drive a grand prix racer with three pedals. If you can't believe that, it's also (as far as we can tell) the first time, despite years of neck-and-neck competition and retention of some of the best drivers on the grid, that a Red Bull or Toro Rosso driver has driven a Ferrari F1 car, and vice versa. See how it went down in the video below.

The Ferrari FF is now the GTC4 Lusso

As groundbreaking as it might have been when it debuted in 2011, the FF was never the best-looking Ferrari in the fleet. And at five years old, it's now the oldest as well. But Maranello is out to correct that with the new model you see here. Dubbed the GTC4 Lusso, the updated version of the FF is not only better-looking than the model it replaces, but packs some innovations under its slightly sharper coachwork as well. It debuts next month at the Geneva Motor Show. The 6.3-liter V12 carries over in naturally aspirated guise, but now produces 680 hp and 514 lb-ft. That's a marked improvement over the existing ratings of 651 horsepower and 504 pound-feet of torque. It still stops short of threatening the more focused F12 Berlinetta with its 730 hp and 509 lb-ft. The muscle still meets the road through the only all-wheel drive system that Ferrari has ever made, but now integrates four-wheel steering as well, like we saw on the F12 TdF. The 4RM-S system works in tandem with Slip Side Control 4.0, integrating the electronic differential and adaptive dampers to keep this horse prancing on no matter the conditions. No mention was made of the transmission, but we're likely dealing with the same seven-speed DCT as its predecessor. Regardless, the sum total is a 0-62 time quoted at 3.4 seconds and a top speed of 208 miles per hour. The revised mechanical bits, as you can see, are wrapped in new sheetmetal. It all looks tauter, more sculpted, and more aggressive than some of the rounded forms of the FF, and the interior has been updated as well. The key change is at the back of the greenhouse. Often derided as somewhat awkward and ungainly, the fastback roofline is lowered with the kink at the back of the side glass flipped, a spoiler added at the trailing edge of the roof, and the twin taillights replaced by four. THE FERRARI GTC4LUSSO DEBUTS AT THE GENEVA SHOW - The Ferrari GTC4Lusso debuts at the Geneva Show: class-leading performance, versatility in all driving conditions, sublime elegance. - A unique car, a whole new world Maranello, 8 February 2016 – Ferrari announces the addition to its range of the Ferrari GTC4Lusso, the new four-seater which hails a major evolution of the sporting Grand Tourer concept by integrating rear-wheel steering with four-wheel drive for the first time.