SPECIAL AFFECTS

Ferrari has built a rich line of thrilling road racers with its ‘special series’ V8s. From Competizione to Pista, we drive them all

- JOHN BARKER

CHALLENGE STRADALE, SPECIALE, Pista… the evocative names of some of Ferrari’s ‘special series’ V8s. They’re all built to the same simple yet compelling formula: take an already exciting production car, strip out unnecessary kit, shave off a chunk of weight, ginger up the power, sharpen the handling and, bingo!, you’ve got yourself a more driver-orientated, more visceral mid-engined Ferrari.

There’s one special series car that gets much less coverage than the rest though, and what’s even stranger is that it’s the original, the blueprint, and the rarest too. It’s the 348 GT Competizione. Some will see that it’s based on the 348 and think they understand why it’s the least known of this thrilling series… and they’d be wrong. As I was.

The standard 348 is not the most coveted of Ferrari’s V8 berlinettas. In a line-up for schoolyard football it would be the last to be picked. In short, it would be lucky to make a list of Maranello’s top 50 road cars. It has its fans though, many of whom hold it up as one of the last analogue Ferraris; no power steering, no traction control, fixed dampers… It’s a Fioravanti design too, from the pen that brought us the 308, Testarossa and F40, and it has aged rather well, hasn’t it?