2005 Ferrari F430 Review & Road Test at Automotive.com

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Ferrari F430

Below is a review of the 2005 Ferrari F430 written by the automotive experts at Automobile Magazine. A full evaluation of the driving experience, price, equipment, and specs are here in a structured, easy-to-navigate format from journalists with a wealth of experience.

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IntelliChoice Value Rating

The chart above shows the purchase price versus ownership cost for each car from a specific vehicle class. The cars with better than average ownership cost/purchase price correlations are the best values, and these best value cars are represented by the dots below the curve. (i.e. the cars that have a lower ownership cost compared to its purchase price.) Those cars, which are worse than average or poor values, appear above the curve.

One way to view the graph is to draw a vertical line through any purchase price. You may see several dots that fall on this line - each of which is a car with a similar purchase price. However, notice the difference in ownership costs of each car represented by the vertical position of the dot. Two cars with the same purchase price can have thousands of dollars difference in ownership costs. This is what separates "good value" cars from "poor value" cars.

What is a good car value?

A "good car value" is one whose cost to own and operate is less than expected. The lower the cost to own and operate a car compared to what is expected, the better the value of that car.

But how do we know a car's "expected cost"?

For each car in the class, IntelliChoice plots the car's purchase price against the total five-year cost to own and operate it as determined by IntelliChoice research. Each dot on the above chart represents a specific car. Generally, we find that as the purchase price of the car increases, the cost to own and operate that car increases. This is why the dots on the graph tend to rise upward and to the right. This phenomenon also makes intuitive sense - as the purchase price rises, financing costs tend to rise, as do insurance, depreciation, taxes, and most other car ownership costs.

This is an important concept. It's normal for car ownership costs to rise as purchase price rises. Therefore, we can't just establish one "average" ownership cost number for each class, since cars in the class have different purchase prices. (This is why the "Relative" shown on each chart is different for cars in the same car class.)

Using statistical techniques, IntelliChoice "connects the dots" to form a curve that defines, for this car class, the relationship between the car's purchase price and car's ownership costs. This curve is our "expected cost" curve. The curve defines, for any car in the class, the five-year ownership cost that we would expect to see at each possible purchase price. If every car in the class were an average value, then all the dots would fall exactly on the curve. However, it's rare that any dot is exactly on the curve. Some dots are a little higher or lower, and some are a lot higher or lower. The dots that are a little lower are better than average car values, while the dots that are a lot lower are excellent car values (A dot that is a lot lower than the curve has ownership costs much lower than expected for a car of its purchase price). Conversely, a dot a little higher than the curve is a poorer than average car value, while a dot that is much higher than the curve is a poor car value.

Value is a relative term, not an absolute term. It is performing better than the logical expectation.

So is a Mercedes-Benz E320 expensive to own and operate? Certainly in an absolute sense. Most other cars cost less. But, when its cost to own and operate is plotted against cars with comparable invoice prices, the E320 costs less. So the E320 is not expensive to own and operate - it is a good car value. The Mercedes does not have low ownership costs, but it has low ownership costs for its invoice price.

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Review From Automobile Magazine

Ferrari F430

By Mark Gillies / Photography by Charlie Magee / Article provided by: Automobile Magazine

As the hairpin bend unwinds, you start squeezing the throttle, and the engine note rises from a creamy bass growl to a screaming contralto howl, underlaid by an increasingly fussy backbeat of cams and valve gear. Where the Ferrari 360 Modena sounded like an overgrown motorcycle, the F430 sings a more melodious, more complex tune. It's a delicious, utterly intoxicating engine noise, one that encourages you to use every last one of the 8500 revs that are on tap before you finger-flick the paddle shifter back and engage third gear, just like that. The engine blares, and-bang, bang-you upshift into fourth, then briefly into fifth, before getting on the brakes for the approaching right-hander. On roads like these, you don't miss the manual transmission at all, reveling instead in the way you can drive the car with both feet and delighting in the instant shifts in Race mode. The deep seam of forward thrust, courtesy of a 4.3-liter V-8 with 483 hp and 343 lb-ft of torque, is pretty compelling, too.

You think to yourself, This thing is bloody quick, then nail the left pedal before easing off the brakes to balance the car as you turn in toward the apex. The optional carbon-ceramic brakes have bite and feel and tremendous power, yet their response is so well tuned that left-foot braking seems natural. Hit the left-hand paddle on the steering column twice to go back into third, drive the car through the corner, then floor it again. In contrast to its high-strung predecessor, there are fat gobs of torque available as low as 3500 rpm, so you don't need to use those shift paddles as much.

The F430 rides the bumpy blacktop on the sinuous mountain roads near Ferrari's Maranello headquarters amazingly well for a sports car that has nineteen-inch wheels and rubber-band tires. It's super-stable at all speeds, its only flaw a lack of wheel travel over the sharpest bumps, which occasionally cause the nose to pitch and scrape the underchin spoiler on the deck.

Coming up to another series of hairpin bends, the F430 turns in as eagerly as a kid choosing candy. The steering is so intuitive and so beautifully weighted that placing the car is a cinch, and the chassis is so fluent and poised that it's easy to dial out incipient understeer with power. Once you've switched the traction and stability control off via the steering-wheel-mounted selector, you can even unglue the tail on the exits of these 180-degree bends. The F430 corners flat and true, the fat Bridgestones gripping hard. This is sensory overload, and it's great.

As you amble gently through a small town, you can switch the transmission into Auto mode and note the vastly improved gearshifts, as well as the different shift patterns as you switch from Race to Sport modes. The optional carbon-fiber bucket seats that save 44 pounds over the standard chairs hold you in nicely, and you realize how natural the driving position is, how good the steering wheel feels in your hands, and how this car is tailored to people who like driving.

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