The immediate joy of the chop-top 458 is that it has managed a very complicated piece of aesthetic management: although this is the first time Ferrari has attempted a folding hardtop on one of its mid-engined cars - the front-engined California CC having already been released a while back - it has been almost completely successful. The Spider looks as interesting and sinewy as the Coupe. No enormous roof-swallowing bottom here, a reassuring lack of junk in the literal trunk. The engine, visible before under a transparent panel, may now be sequestered somewhere under the rear clamshell, and a few extra vents are bare compromise, but, roof up or down, this is one good-looking car. In pretty much any colour, which is always a good litmus of successful design.