Ferrari 488GTB review: Here's what 'world class' actually means

[Suarez™]

It has been one year since the Ferrari 488GTB came on the market and one long, painful, terrible, teeth-gnashing, gut-churning year that we have been longing for it. Yes, others on staff have driven them; higher-ranking, better-looking, better-connected staff members have piloted 488s in both GTB coupe and spyder configurations and you have read their insightful analysese here over that year. But not all of us had driven it yet, and therein lie the aching, longing, pitiful agony.

“Oh, did you want to drive it?”

This was our friend at Ferrari asking, and how exactly are you supposed to respond to that without sounding like an obsessed, restraining-ordered, strait-jacket-wearing, maniac nutjob?

“Oh, yes, sure, mmm hmmm, uh huh, ya, of course, OK, that’d be fine, thank you…”

Did that sound all right? Would you lend a Ferrari to someone who sounded like that? Well, they did. And not just once, but twice. The first was in Monterey, where Ferraris and all kinds of other fabulous cars were everywhere, crowded onto the street like Odyssey and Sienna minivans in the dropoff area of a Montessori school (Maria Montessori was Italian, btw). We went to a place called Casa Ferrari, a former gas station/art gallery that Ferrari leased (by agreeing to paint it, or something like that; maybe there was more involved). Regardless, it was a hangout for the people who actually own Ferraris, not just whack-jobs like us who like them. There were beautiful people: The men wore scarves, seersucker suits and straw fedoras, the ladies had heels that looked like very thin, very tall pier pilings. There was pasta and air-dried ham.