430 Scud @ Hakone

They say you shouldn’t meet your heroes, but what if they’re only your former heroes?

With this vaguest raison d’être in mind, during my first time back to the island of kintsuge in nearly 20 years, I booked the Ferrari 430 Scuderia for a 220km round-trip from Shibuya, Tokyo to the famed Hakone Tānpaiku highway to see if one of yesteryear’s heroes still had a few tricks up its sleeve.

Though I never watched Initial D growing up, and though this draws many to this particular route, this “Nurburgring of Japan” was really just seemed like the best arena to properly drive a sportscar that didn’t involve renting out the entirety of Fuji Speedway for my humble amusement.i And since the 430 Scudii was formerly a dream car of mine in my formative early years of car enthusiasm – right up there with the R35 GT-R that I actually went on to own, mod the shit out of, and only sell in 2023 after six years of loving abuse – during my monthlong stay in the Land of the Rising Sun, I took a morning to try yet another model from the “not gay” horsie brand with the genuine hope that a more track-oriented Fezza would give me the fizz.

Waking up at 5:30 AM to meet my driving guide at 6:45 AM, I left my dear sleeping wife at our Heatherwick-designed hotel and made my way to the sunrise rendezvous point. Arriving mere moments before the Pittsburg Steelers-themed Ferrari, my pupils dilated as the dew-soaked feline snuck up on the gas station. Could this silhouette really be over two decades old? Frank never missed, did he…iii

Emerging out of the left-hand-driveniv supercar sportscar, my guide Oki – an average-sized Japanese manv in his mid-20s sporting the all-black outfit that is the unspoken uniform of so many locals here – introduced himself in very competent English and instantly proceeding to show me around the utterly immaculate vehicle to make sure that there were no undue dings, scratches, or dents. With only 23,000 km on the clock, and having apparently lead a life closer to that of Waygu cows than the dusty, flea-bitten broom-tails we kick around back in the colonies, I couldn’t help but be impressed out-of-the-gate. Even better, the seriously fine folks at Tokyo Supercars even went so far as to fit a brand spanking new set of almighty Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tires just for me! This, after I inquired what kind of tires the car was fitted with, to which they responded by asking me what tires I’d recommend putting on the car since the set was about to be replaced anyways. So ya, we were off to a rocking good start.vi

Quickly oriented, we set off for Hakone about an hour away, and it didn’t take long before we were in a high-speed convoy with a new R35 Nismo and a McLaren 570S, ripping around the sea of silver Toyota hybrids. At least until… traffic. At just after 7 AM, it was nearly stop-and-go on Route 3 turning into E1. And would you believe there was no adaptive cruise control, no massage seats, and no Burmeister sound system to soothe what ailed? So rather than rely on the creature comforts of modern automoting, my guide Oki and I got to know each other a bit better. It turned out that he’d gone to highschool in Victoria BC and completed his undergrad in Aviation in Nebraska, so not only was his English more than decent, but we had a ton of common ground with which to compare and contrast our respective cultures, climates, economies, demographics, and of course futures, between the rapidly declining West and the slightly more slowly declining Japan.

Our intro chit chat smoothing the morning rush hour experience, we finally broke through the gridlock, blasted down a few tunnels and open highway stretches marked “70” KPH but with nary an officer nor speed camera in sight to prevent us from covering ground at 2-3x that, and we arrived soon enough at the base of Hakone toll road. As we pulled over for a canned hot coffee from the vending machine while we stretched our legs for a moment,  a Lamborghini Aventador SVJ 63vii driven by a 30-something local man ripped right up to the manned toll booth, handed over the requisite Yen, and proceeded to unchain Sant’Agata’s deadliest raptures upon the once-respiteful hillside. That theatrical tone being well and truly set, we snapped back our brews and raced into the Scud in hot pursuit. Now, at last, to put yesteryear’s poster car through its paces!

But with air temperatures in the low-single-digits and heavy rains the day before, no matter my momentary excitement, the road surface demanded caution, which I gave it… at first. But as my confidence almost immediately expanded thanks to the rock-solid chassis and fresh rubber, it was mere minutes before I was pushing deeper into the throttle and harder into the ceramic brakes, chasing the burly bull up the legendary hill. As my co-pilot Oki snapped a few short videosviii from the passenger seat, I quickly got the impression that not all of his guided drives were so, um, spirited.

Not that I was “pushing it” by any stretch of the imagination. Given my utter ignorance of the route, the relatively blind corners and crests, the uneven and damp road surface, and broadly unfamiliar vehicle, 6.5/10 was about the average, ie. than enough for the conditions and circumstances, in your humble author’s opinion. Still, with no one behind us and the SVJ some tantalizing distance ahead, I couldn’t help but seize the opportunity for some greedier saws of the helm, digging just beneath the docile surface to see if adhesive limits were readily accessible at this level of engagement, and then the next level, and the next, until soon enough I was at speeds that gave essentially no room for error should I come upon a patch of ice or gravel, not to mention a random slow car/cyclist popping up ahead.

And yet the Scud wouldn’t budge from its line! No matter how aggressively I dodged, ducked, dived, or dodged, it stayed true to form and used its nimble size and weight to great advantage in navigating the continuous maze of twists and turns. In spite of the fairly-dead-on-centre-if-predictable steering and woodenish-if-effective brake pedal, no feet-deep rain gutters nor shaded black boulders made acquaintance with my sparkly black bumpers and gluey fresh tires. This was a satisfying measure of success, to be sure, but was I having… fun?

Not massively so, it must be said, and it pains me not to say. Between more  leisurely yet jolty transmission shifts than expected, a sonorous but hardly hair-raising V8 soundtrack, and that slightly numb tiller/brake combo, I was reasonably physically engaged in the experience thanks to the tight carbon bucket seats, but not more than that. No particular emotional engagement bubbled forth from the depths of my soul, but even still I couldn’t say I regretted choosing the 430 Scud based on what was available at the time (though in filtering through my mental rolodex of options, I couldn’t help but think that a 992 GT3 variant of some description might’ve been the ultimate play on the day)…

That being said, I could’ve hardly asked for a more stoic and conversationally attentive co-pilot with whom to spend 5 hours discussing cars and culture,ix but it might also be time to rethink the whole Ferrari-travel-rental-bender I’ve been on lately. While the aesthetic designs of cavallino rampantes continue to seduce me and keep me warm on late-night binges through BaT, and while I have more money (and swagger?) than a married midwestern man has any reasonable right to, after now my 3rd F-car driven in anger, at least as out-and-out driver’s cars, I’m just not seeing the appeal? Maybe when I’m in my 50s and more content with sexy summer cruisers rather than time attack killers, I’ll grab the red keys from Maranello, but until then, I gotta say that Zuffenhausen has it zipped up for me.x

So all that being said, after flying 10,000 km to rip the 430 Scud up Hakone Turnpike, I can’t in good conscience abide by Clarkson’s in-period take. While he almost single-handedly made the Scud into a poster car for me back in 2008, if he (or any other former heroes) come calling now, it’d be wisest to tell them I’m busy… in a Porsche.

  1. Though I briefly entertained this option. And it was an option. ↩
  2. Jeremy Clarkson’s Top Gear Magazine article from January 2008 (issue #173) is still seared into my memory. Back in the day I used to pay $20(!) to get gray market imported issues like this from the local bookstore. Worth. Every. Penny.

    Here’s an except from his review… but will his mighty words hold water?

    One brand that does stand out: Ferrari. It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about the 430, the 599 or the 612 – they feel very different to the rest of the breed. They feel…better. I always imagine when I’m in a Ferrari that they feel like other cars will in about 20 years’ time. They have a lightness and delicacy you don’t get in other supercars. There’s a poise too, and a sense in your buttocks, ears and fingertips that all will be well no matter how fast you entered the last bend. I like driving them… a lot.

    The upshot is 503bhp in a full-on fury car that weighs a full 100kg less than the standard version. And boy can you sense this on the road where it is unbelievably, staggeringly, joyously noisy. This is the one sensation you take away above all others. The noise. The drone. The headache. You are dimly aware of some speed, and surprisingly compliant suspension. You vaguely register the speed of the flappy paddle gearbox and how smoothly it changes these days. And then you have to have another Nurofen.

    I loved it. I loved it because here was a Ferrari that drove like a Ferrari and had the passion of a Ferrari as well.

    And then there’s the braking. When I first tried carbon ceramic discs, just three years ago on a McLaren Mercedes, I thought they were a silly spin off from Formula 1 that either squeaked if you used them gently, or hurled you through the windscreen if you were a bit more firm. Not any more. In the Scuderia, they stop you fast, and with feel, and endlessly. They are brilliant.

    Yes, there’s computer stuff. The e-diff talks to the traction system behind your back, for instance, but you feel part of the machine – you feel like you’re in something created by enthusiasts, not technicians.

    As you cannon out of a bend, marvelling at the wall of sound and the extraordinary grip, you are pinned in your seat, unaware that the ride height is down, or that the air is being parted more cleanly. All you care about is that you don’t want it to stop.

    As a driving machine, I know of nothing to match this… With a honeymoon island, life is easy. Just pick the nearest. And the cheapest. With supercars, it’s even easier. Just pick a 430 Scuderia.

    The big oaf’s TV review? Less memorable save the “welded by apes” bit, but here’s the whole enchilada in all its copyright-eliding glory anyways:

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  3. Frank Stephenson is a name any design aficionado, of the automotive sub-species especially, should know. He designed the 1999 BMW X5, 2001 Mini Cooper, 2005 McLaren MP4-12C, 2008 Fiat 500, 2013 McLaren P1, and yes, squeezed in the mix, the 2004 Ferrari F430 from which our review subject today is derived.

    And while I find Shmee150 at least as obnoxious as the next guy (with a pair), I can still recommend his recent interview with the legend that is Mr. Stephenson. The childlike wonder that such a sensitive automotive artist is able to maintain is scarcely what you’d expect from a man of such accomplishments:

    You can also check out Frank Stephenson’s YouTube channel here. It’s a shame he no longer posts regularly, but his YT archives are near-as-makes-no-difference to being the gilded manuscripts of our age. So enjoy! ↩

  4. I swear between 20-30% of luxury cars in Tokyo are LHD, which is wild! Far more than expected, but perhaps showing off some of the mental flexibility of this otherwise incredibly structured and ordered nation. Or something. ↩
  5. Hi Oki!

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  6. I could list several other scarcely believable examples from our first few weeks in Japan, but suffice to say that customer service in this country is taken to a high art form. No tatted-up husky-assed hustlers slinging SlipMax scam rubber here! Just pure culture:

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  8. Here’s one:

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  9. Talking to Oki, n=1 that he is, I couldn’t help but get a kick out of how much he loves the West for our friendlier, more open minded, less serious, more gender-equal(!) approach. The grass is indeed always greener… ↩
  10. Funny how 80 years after WW2 ended and all the most desirable industrial design objects today are made by former “Axis” powers. So maybe “fascism” wasn’t so bad, but you knew that already. ↩