Probably the nicest and most sexy looking car in the history of the Ferrari 458 GT3

Work in progress by Corse e Strada

Details & description

“The Ferrari 458 GT3 proved to be the perfect car for the GT3 class: easy to drive, simplicity of maintenance, and low running cost made it the preferred GT3 vehicle for gentlemen drivers around the world” (Cristiano Michelotto, 2019)

The GT3 class of race cars was conceived for gentlemen drivers. The priority of this project was to keep costs down while ensuring ease of maintenance and drivability. With this in mind, Michelotto engineers took the Ferrari 458 Challenge car and studied ways of boosting its potential and, at the same time, improving its reliability for endurance racing. The aerodynamics were altered to generate more downforce, it was fitted with bigger tires to improve grip, the carbon ceramic brake discs were replaced with cast iron ones and a new electronically actuated sequential gearbox was installed. The result was a slightly heavier and more powerful car than the GT2 but with an engine more akin to the road-going version, to the benefit of less experienced drivers. Indeed, the Ferrari 458 GT3 driven by private drivers has won just about everything, most notably the FIA GT3 already in the first year, 2011, the 24H of Daytona in 2014 and two IMSA Championships. With the Ferrari 458 GT3, Michelotto took its biggest step forward in terms of output, producing on average two custom-built cars a week for a total of 107 units, and also expanded towards new markets such as Asia and Australia. It comes as no surprise that the Ferrari 458 GT3 holds the record for the number of titles won.

This car, the chassis F142 GT3 *3610* was produced in December 2014 and was the 3rd last 458 GT3 coming off the assembly line at Michelotto in Padova before this extremely succesful car was replaced by its successor in 20154-2016, the Ferrari 488 GT cars.

In 2015, MOMO as a highly reputated company in the racing world, announced its 3 year partnership to become a major partner/sponsor for the US-based Pirelli World Challenge championship. The cars where run by US based team NGT, which launched on internet a competition where enthousiastic fans could enter proposals of livery designs based around MOMO. The winning design resulted in probably the nicest and most sexy looking car in the 458 GT3 history. See it yourself in this MOVIE.

In 2015, this MOMO Ferrari 458 GT3 car was entered in the Pirelli World Challenge. In 2017 won the series with an impressive 9 wins in 10 races (driver : Henrique Cisneros). The car has been raced at Laguna Seca in October 2015 by Alessandro Pier Guidi, currently factory driver for Ferrari in the WEC and winning together with James Callado the 2017 LMGTE Pro class of the 2017 FIA World Endurance Championship and 2019 24 Hours of Le Mans in a Ferrari 488 GTE.

After having crashed in the USA, Corse E Strada bought the car in 2019. At Michelotto, a complete new car was (re)built in 2020, resulting in a 0 km, latest spec and sexiest looking 458 GT3 car ever.

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