You need to be wealthy to buy a brand new supercar built by Ferrari. But you need to be rich on a whole different level to have Ferrari build a car just for you. That’s what Maranello does for a couple of select clients every year, and this is its latest creation, the SP-8.
‘SP’ stands for ‘Special Projects’, the division responsible for these one-offs, and ‘8’ is a reference to the now departed F8 Spider, the last iteration of the car that started life as the 458. And mechanically, the SP-8 is identical to an F8, because the SP team doesn’t mess with that stuff under the skin, so it has a twin-turbo 3.9-liter V8 making 710 hp (720 PS). But the skin itself is very different.
The difference comes via a new set of carbon clothes that subtly reshape the F8’s body, but also from the clever two-tone color scheme that tricks your eyes into thinking the reshaping is even more radical. While the rear bodywork is painted silver, the front section has a visible carbon finish that looks like it’s trying to consume the rest of the car.
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The nose features a full-width cast aluminum grille made from a single, 3D-printed mold, the vertical spokes being spaced and angled through a combination of the design team’s opinion of what looks right and the aerodynamics department’s flow data. There are also special headlight covers, while the wheels reference the looks of rims used on cars like the F40.
At the rear, the design references more modern cars. The square exhaust tips come from the 296 GTB and the taillights are lifted from the Roma, but given unique lenses. Inside, there’s a mixture of new and old because while the basic dashboard architecture is retained from the F8, the gear selector for the F1 transmission adopts the retro-look gate first introduced on the SF90 Stradale.
The commissioning owner apparently comes from Taiwan, so let’s hope the weather is good there, because the SP-8 has no roof. But then again, if you can afford a rumored $2 million to get on the Ferrari Special Projects Christmas card list, you’ve probably got a few other cars to use when it rains.
