Ferrari have taken the wraps of the limited edition, Paris Motorshow bound, convertible 458 Speciale A which is the most disappointing special edition name Ferrari could have thunk of. Yes we did say thunk. The “A” moniker actually refers to the Italian word Aperta, which roughly translated into English means “open”. If you are using Google translate it will probably mean “monopoly of the search engine rankings”. Now.. 458 Italia Aperta sounds exotically good, just using the letter A is “idiota”, which in Google translate means, “screw the European Commission”. The Speciale A carries over the same folding hard top and therefore the same additional 50kg of extra weight over the Speciale coupe. Despite the weight penalty the Speciale A matches the lap time set by its Speciale coupe sibling around Ferrari’s private test track, Fiorano, with a time of 1:23.5. That’s 1.5 seconds faster than the bog standard 458 coupe. Ferrari fans won’t be disappointed with the performance stats, its the most powerful spider the company has ever made. The naturally aspirated 4.5-litre V8 engine throttles the 0-62 time in just 3.0 seconds dead thanks to 597bhp and 540Nm of toruqe. That’s serious weapons grade power. Front and rear active areo dynamics and improved chassis rigidity open up a handling goldmine for those willing to explore the depths of this 458 Speciale A. When ever an automotive company releases a more ridiculously powerful version then it needs to it usually indicates an imminent model replacement is on the cards. But this is no swansong for the 458, but it may well be for the naturally aspirated V8 powerplant which will be superseded by a new turbo-charged era all in the name of saving the planet and we will all be the worse of for it. The 458 Speciale A is expected to cost around £250k (that’s $400k) and only 499 are planned to be built, with new boss Sergio Marchionne in charge that could rise to 12,000 units a year. Hell yeah!