KEY POINTS:
At Fiorano, Ferrari's private track just outside of Italian town of Maranello, stands a Lockheed Starfighter jet in weathered red.
It recalls the day in late 1981 when, in a standing start acceleration duel over 1000m, the supersonic Cold War warrior was bettered by one of the greatest, most spectacular drivers ever to don a helmet.
This was a battle of brute force. Gilles Villeneuve was at the wheel of the Ferrari 126C F1, a turboed 1.5-litre V6 - considered one of the least manageable cars. Against him was a stub-winged missile nicknamed the widowmaker.
Fast forward 26 years. A driver with none of Villeneuve's talent, having paid tribute to a boyhood hero, slides down behind the wheel of the first Ferrari he's ever experienced, the 430 Scuderia, and wonders what if?
Hard data suggests the 430 Scuderia would have been in the hunt if the race were to be rerun today.
Villeneuve had 432kW available for a top speed of 319km/h. The 375kW Scuderia runs to 317km/h. The factory says it will crack 0-100km/h in 3.6 seconds. Starfighter pace.
Think about that. A quarter of a century ago, you needed an F1 car to race a jet. Now a fast car that can be driven by captains of industry to golf days will do. Awesome.
Actually, this two-seater is more likely to be taken to the nearest race circuit. That's its real home.
The Scuderia is expected to carry a 20 per cent surcharge over the regular F430, which means a cost of close to $500,000. It is certainly more a spend on speed than anything else. Comfort is reduced. There's air conditioning, electric windows and airbags. Gone are the stereo and carpet.
Made-for-size racing seats with optional four-point harness suggest this is a racing car awaiting a door number, as do the many bits rendered in carbon fibre - the rear wing, mirrors, seats, tunnel, door panels, bulkhead, and air-filter boxes.
Ferrari took 100kg off. Accessory brackets were remachined for reduced weight. The wheels are lighter. The wheel nuts and wheel brace are titanium.
The body shell is subtly altered to improve aerodynamics: no big wings or spoilers to ruin the shape. Making a big difference are barely noticed air vents inside the rear wheel arches. These smooth the airflow so well that downforce, equal to an F50s, is distributed evenly front to rear.
There's more. Key components are a trick differential (E-Diff2), trickier traction control (F1-Trac2) and the autoclutch gearbox, F1-SuperFast2, whose robotic reaction to paddleshift movement enacts changes at just 60 milliseconds. Humans don't even blink in 60 milliseconds.
This brings out the best from the 4.3-litre V8 engine. Power is only urged up 15kW to 375kW and torque fattened 5Nm to 470Nm, but it hardly disappoints.
It's a fantastic engine, incredibly elastic and gutsy. You need only think about going fast and it responds. The note from the twin cannon-size pipes changes throughout the rev range, from deep-chested V8 low down to an F1 wail at high revs.
Positioned as the successor to the 360 Challenge Stradale, the Scuderia is "aimed specifically at Ferrari's most passionate and sports-driving oriented clients".
It's also a reminder that know-how and lessons learned on the track can be applied, if loosely, to the road.
Scuderia means "team" in Italian and, for Italian car fans, the name is synonymous with Scuderia Ferrari, set up by Enzo Ferrari in 1929 when he managed Alfa Romeo's racing effort.
Ferrari didn't simply create this car because it could. The project has also kept another F1 titan busy. Taking an emphatic hands-on role in the design stage was a 37-year-old German with a record seven world championships. This is a Scud by Michael Schumacher, credited with providing insight into the ride and handling.
It would be stretching it to say I managed to get to grips with the fastest, most desirable Ferrari of the moment. I was pleased simply to survive it.
History here runs as thick as balsamic vinegar, another speciality of the region.
Beside the track is the farmhouse that was Enzo Ferrari's office for so many years. Revered names came here. Amon, Andretti, Alesi. Berger, Lauda, Scheckter. Mansell. Gilles. Michael. Kimi. It's incredible mere mortals are even occasionally allowed in.
No argument that the Scuderia needs the controlled environment of a race track to shine. Around the main 2.97km figure-eight layout, it is two seconds faster than the firm's million-dollar monster, the legendary V12 Enzo (1m 25s versus 1m 27s).
Schumacher's stand-in at Fiorano for our visit is former F1 racer and works driver Marc Gene. It's a technical track, designed to bring out flaws, but the Spaniard and his acolytes have clearly mastered sitting on the fine line between genius and car-breaking disaster.
Soon it's time to share the emotional heat. My effort is not going to get me a job on Gene's squad, but at least I keep out of the scenery. The velocity and noise are stunning. So, thank God, are the ceramic brakes and the grip.
Of all the good stuff wedged into this car, ultimately the most appreciated technology is the manettino, a multi-position switch on the steering wheel that co-ordinates the efforts of the drive-by-wire throttle, traction and stability controls, differential, shift programming and damping, depending on the driver's aggression and road conditions.
The system has been reworked. The F430's Ice setting has been removed, and in its place is a CT Off mode that turns off traction control but leaves on the stability system. This allows some wheelspin while managing oversteer. Sort of.
The other settings are Low Roadholding, Sport, Race, and CST Off, which deactivates all electronic aids except ABS.
It's suggested we start in Sport mode then perhaps step up to Race, which allows you to provoke quite a lot more skid-ability and wheelspin.
The main feature of Sport is a "soft" damper setting, ostensibly to improve roadholding on uneven surfaces, but also to improve comfort. This is a Ferrari-first credited to Schumacher, proposed after he spent a weekend with a prototype. This setting and the excellent traction control make it tolerable on the road.
There's only one place where the Scud is slow, and that's on the assembly line. The 11 cars on the launch represented one-fifth of total production, with assembly currently running at 1.5 units a day, eventually to ramp up to four.
Ultimately, the Scuderia will account for 20 per cent of total 430 production, but just for a little while. Talk is that only 1700 are likely to be made. Order now, and you might see a car in a year to 18 months. Many are already spoken for.
The 430 Scuderia is hardly perfect. It's almost always noisy and, in removing all the lower trim in the cabin, Ferrari has opened to scrutiny some gory welding. It also goes cheap by using ordinary-looking Fiat switchgear.
Purists will not care. They will say it epitomises the Ferrari spirit.
Enjoy while you can. Europe's journey toward a lower carbon future does not allow for a car such as this. That the Scuderia produces less CO2 than the regular model hardly matters. Its emissions far exceed levels proposed.
Granturismo senior boss Ameldo Felesa told me future product will weigh even less and will likely adopt fuel-saving technology such as engine stop-start.
Hydrogen is a long-term probability; hybrids not. There will not be a Prius Ferrari in our future.
Still, its undeniably among the more exciting road cars on earth, an unmitigated celebration of roaring horsepower. Red bloods of all ages will love it.
I met two in the tiny village of Rizzo, high in the hills behind Maranello. The teenagers appeared to be set to use a pedestrian crossing, but no.
As the car rumbled to a halt, one of the boys cried "bravo" and clapped. The other waved the car through. In Italy, it seems, pedestrians always give way to Ferraris.
