The “M” portion stands for “Modificata” -or “modified” to us. It’s in there because the 456 was made from 1992-2003, and in 1998, the model underwent a refresh that improved both form and function. This is why, when looking at 456s that are for sale now, the pre “M” models sell for around $10,000-$20,000 less than the “M” models, but we’ll get into that later.
The “GT” portion is something we’ve seen before. It stands for “Gran Turismo” and signifies that the car is a grand tourer. That is to say, it’s a horsey that was born to run long distance trips in comfort, and at sustained high speeds. Finally, the “A” portion signifies that this one has an automatic transmission, which is kind of a rare thing to find in a Ferrari, but not so rare in a Ferrari 456. A 456M GT would be the same car but with a manual instead of the automatic.
Well, it sure looks lovely, doesn’t it? Of course it does! That body was designed by Pininfarina, which I’ve mentioned in several other posts. I’m not sure that design firm is capable of producing something that doesn’t look great. Absolutely, this is a good looking car, but what can it do?
With a thundering 5.5L V12 under the hood, this beast can pound out 442 HP and 406 lb-ft of torque, put to the pavement at the rear wheels. Meanwhile, the car’s 2+2 seating arrangement can accommodate up top four people. It’s got a top speed of 185 MPH (and can go one mph higher than that with the manual transmission), and a 0-60 time of 5.2 seconds. The downside is the 10/15 MPG you’ll get while driving this machine, which means frequent and expensive stops at the gas pump.
One of the things about this car that was considered pretty cool at the time was how the frameless windows would dip down a tiny bit when the doors opened and pop back up when they closed to seal in the window channel. That’s not so uncommon now, and in fact, my Mustang has that same feature, but it was initially a rare offering when the 456M was introduced. That Pininfarina body work mentioned earlier is done in aluminum to keep the car nice and light. In fact, the curb weight I was able to track down for the 456 is about 3,700 lbs, so it‘s a fairly lean, mean machine.
And here’s the famous badge that lets you know without a doubt that this is a Ferrari. The black prancing pony, rearing up against a yellow backdrop is a gorgeous icon befitting of an equally gorgeous car like this. And, since we spent a little while deciphering acronyms earlier in this post, let’s take a moment to talk about that “SF” on the emblem. It stands for “Scuderia Ferrari” which means Ferrari Stable. Usually, this is taken to mean Team Ferrari instead of like a horse stable where these mechanical prancing ponies are parked. It’s a nod to the racing division of this illustrious automobile brand.
But lets go back to that black prancing pony for a moment, because it’s time to work in some literature. This one isn’t much of a leap, so you won’t have to stretch too far to hop aboard my oncoming tangent. In 1941, a novel called “The Black Stallion” written by Walter Farley was published. I read it back in the 1980’s when I was a kid, and I even saw the movie that was made based on the book, because it was one that was shown quite frequently at the library where I used to go to check out books. Now that I think about it, doesn’t it seem odd to show the movie version of things at the very place where people should be going to get the book version? -oh well.
Anyway, the book and movie centered around an Arabian race horse who ended up stranded on an island with a teenage kid named Alec after the ship they were both traveling on sank. There’s the touching story of the kid and the horse forming a bond over having to rely on each other to survive and blah, blah, blah, until eventually, they’re rescued. When Alec and the black stallion get on solid land, they take up horse racing, and it turns out that they’re pretty good at it.
The kid, Alec, is apparently not too creative when it comes to picking names, and he names this black stallion “Black”. I suppose it could be worse. He could have named the horse something like “456”, but I digress. Anyway, more books were written after the success of the initial Black Stallion novel, and in them, Black produces some offspring, one of which is named Satan, which seems like a good way to keep expectations low in terms of that colt’s behavior and conduct, but otherwise, kind of a mean name to give a little baby horse. Whatever, we already determined that Alec is no good at picking horse names, so it’s not like this should be a surprise.
So, what does our Ferrari 456M GT-A have in common with Black, the black stallion? Most obviously, they’re both black. One is a black horse, while the other is a black car that features a black horse on its badges. Both have some racing blood in their veins, and both are fast.
Whereas Black the stallion sired a successor named Satan, the 456 was replaced by a car called the 612 Scaglietti, which isn’t really a word so much as it’s a name, and no, it doesn’t translate to mean Satan, though at least both start with an S, so there’s that in common. Scaglietti was an Italian coach building company that did a lot of work for Ferrari initially and is now owned by Ferrari. Though, it should be noted that even the 612 Scaglietti was actually designed by Pininfarina. Oh, and to make a little skip to another tangent, 612 just happens to be the telephone area code for good old Minneapolis, Minnesota, which is where I am situated right now, looking at my photos of today’s car and typing away about the Black Stallion…. And speaking of which, let’s get back to that comparison.
The Black Stallion can only comfortably seat one rider, whereas the 456M GT-A can accommodate 4. Both, however, would have to be shipped across the sea to get from their places of origin to the US market.
Both the Black Stallion and the Ferrari 456 are expensive. Brand new, the Ferrari 456 had a price tag that topped $200,000. A race horse can cost millions of dollars depending upon its breeding and its history. Both Ferraris and race horses are expensive to maintain. Just to give some perspective, from what I looked up today on the Weekly Hay Market Demand and Price Report, the average price for prime grade hay is $275.83 per ton. According to some poster on Yahoo answers, there are 308 gallons in one ton of gasoline, which as of right now, has a national average price of $3.29 per gallon, though I’m sure the Ferrari takes premium, but we’ll err on the side of keeping this simple. So, 3.29 X 308 = $1,013.32 for a ton of gasoline. The actual horse is cheaper to feed, it turns out.
Of course, now that the 456 hasn’t been made for over ten years, the cost to buy one has gone down significantly. Most of the post 1998, M model 456s that I found had between 10,000-20,000 miles on their odometers and were priced between $50,000 and $70,000. Pre 1998 model years, and thus before the M 456s will ring up at around $40,000. Personally, I’d take the Ferrari over the Black Stallion race horse, mostly because it’s a car that I love, but also because I don’t have a “scuderia” to accommodate an actual horse.
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