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5 Things I Love About the Ferrari 430 Scuderia
Despite being known as a Porsche fanboy, when people ask me what my favourite driver’s car is, I tend to answer with a very specific Ferrari...
April 5, 2024
Jonty has sweet-talked his way behind the wheel of countless supercars over the years. Here are his five favourites.
Those of us fortunate enough to get behind the wheel of different cars on a regular basis find ourselves at the end of the same question quite a lot... "What's the best car you've driven?". So, we thought it was about time we put our favourites on paper (or screen), starting with the top blagger of other people's wheels, Jonty.
Written by: Jonty Wydell
With the M600, a small British manufacturer churned out one of the best modern supercars on the planet. For the focused driver, this thing is perfect. It has a power-to-weight figure which can match any of the latest offerings from Ferrari, Lamborghini or Porsche, it’s mid-engined with a fire-spitting twin-turbocharged V8 that comes with a soundtrack akin to a thunderstorm, driving the rear wheels through a manual gearbox. There’s a reasonably big boot in the front for a weekend away and it’s an absolute hoot to drive. There isn’t really much to fault it on. Being hand-built, the build quality isn’t what you’d get in a mass-produced supercar but the biggest issue is finding one to buy!
The most ‘Lamborghini’ version of the Huracan. Based on the Super Trofeo race car, the STO looks like a five-year-old’s interpretation of what a Huracan should look like, but the STO is more than just outrageous looks. It’s also the most driver-focused variant giving plenty of feedback through the seat and through your arse, and don’t get me started on the soundtrack — the 5.2-litre V10 howling away just behind you is utterly wonderful. Downsides? The boot is a joke, meaning it’s not really a car you can use to go anywhere in for an extended period of time, unless you’re on one of our tours and then your luggage can go in a van! Despite that, I’d still have one for those moments you fancy an evening blast.
This may come as a bit of a surprise to be in my top five and placing so highly, but if there was any car I’d go out tomorrow and buy to use for a weekend drive, for tours or as a daily, it would be this. The new Mercedes powerplant in the Vantage means it’s fast and reliable, and it’s so pretty too! Being more understated than the other cars in my top five, you can get away with parking in places you wouldn’t want to park something like a Ferrari or Lamborghini. The Aston Martin brand is also much more universally liked and of course there’s the Bond association. Every time you put it in sport and change down a few cogs, there’s a natural anticipation for an impending car chase!
The daddy! Growing up, this car was the icon of the ‘80s and I guess most of the ’90s too. Even into my teens, this car still took up the majority of poster space on my bedroom wall, and although they say don’t meet your heroes, I did and it did not disappoint. There has never been a more characterful supercar, and I mean that in both a good and bad way, but the bad bits are also what make it good. The build quality is shocking, but that’s because it was built with the principles of racing in mind, despite never originally being designed as a racing car. The turbo lag is horrendous, but that just adds suspense and also gives you the satisfying relief of getting back from a drive in one piece. Driving an F40 gives you the same sort of high as a class-A narcotic (not speaking from experience of the latter by the way) and I doubt that anyone will ever make a car to match the F40. So why isn’t it first? Well, there’s no boot, they are very expensive to run, and as one of our members recently found out on our Spain tour, they’re difficult to drive quickly on the road due to ground clearance issues, so it would spend too much time in the garage being looked at rather than driven, but what a piece art!
One of the best-balanced supercars of all time. Although it doesn’t come with an engaging manual gearbox, it does have an early double-clutch gearbox which is flawless. Being the last of the naturally-aspirated V8s alone makes it the one to have, and that 570bhp engine doesn’t just scream, howl or rumble, it sings! Imagine the engine equivalent to Pavarotti, and if you go for the Spider, you can hear it sing even more It’s still a useable supercar too, with a reasonably sized boot, and in the Sport setting the ride isn’t too harsh. I wouldn’t be disappointed in any way with the Italia though. It has the looks, handling, noise, usability, reliability, and they’re even relatively cheap to service and run. Why the base 458 and not a Specialé? Well, the Specialé is the better car for sure and if money were no object then that would be the one to go for, however the base model is a third of the price, and is in no way a third of the car.
