The Ferrari 488 GTB and Lamborghini Huracan are the stuff of every school kid's dreams; full-on, fiery supercars with high-brow Italian breeding and enough accelerative force to blow your Ray-Ban's off without even breaking a sweat. But the standard versions are really just the Waitrose of the exotic car world. The really, really rich and important people, who properly love cars, going fast and having the best of the best, want the lightweight, tuned-up, all-guns-blazing version. They want the Harrods food hall version. 

Welcome to the elite of the elite. The Ferrari 488 Pista and the Lamborghini Huracan Performante

2018 Ferrari 488 Pista prototype
2017 Lamborghini Huracan Performante: First Drive

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The cars

Oh, they're so good. You can read all about the Ferrari 488 Pista in our first drive, but to take something as vibrant and alive as the Ferrari 488 GTB, and make it drastically more powerful, lighter and even more banzai is a bit mental and yet brilliant. The Huracan Performante delivers a slightly different character of super-special supercar, with its ecstatically wonderful naturally-aspirated V10 engine and rear-biased four-wheel drive. 

Scroll down for the full galleries of the Ferrari prototype in action, and the finished thing at Geneva, as well as the Lambo in a variety of spectacular colours. And of course, have a look at how the numbers stack up below to see which one wins at the numbers game. 

The numbers

Ferrari 488 Pista
2017 Lamborghini Huracan Performante: First Drive
  Ferrari 488 Pista Lamborghini Huracan Performante
Price £252,695 £207,925
Engine 3.9-litre, V8 twin-turbo petrol 5.2-litre, V10 
Transmission 7-speed dual-clutch auto 7-speed dual-clutch auto
Drivetrain Rear-wheel drive Four-wheel drive 
Power 711bhp at 8000rpm 630bhp at 8000rpm 
Torque 568lb ft at 3000rpm 443lb ft at 6500rpm 
Power per tonne 513bhp 459bhp
0-62mph 2.85sec 2.9sec 
0-124mph 7.6sec 8.9sec
Top speed 211mph 201mph 
Fuel economy 24.5mpg 16.0mpg 
CO2 emissions 263g/km 314g/km 
Seats 2 2
Length 4605mm 4506mm
Width (excl. mirrors) 1975mm  1924mm
Height 1206mm  1165mm
Wheelbase 2650mm  2620mm 
Weight (dry) 1385kg  1382kg

Which one wins? 

The nod has to go to the Ferrari. It's more expensive and has two fewer driven wheels, but it's more powerful and check out the 0-124mph time... Both the Lambo and Ferrari are up to 62mph in much the same 2.9sec time, but the 488 bullies its way to 124mph a whacking 1.3sec faster, which in supercar terms is a lot. Those turbos, which you'll note serve up vastly more torque from much lower revs, would be the reason why, as much as the extra bhp. 

And yet, a nod to the Huracan here. Because while the Ferrari trounces it in terms of performance numbers, the Huracan's V10 is a thing of ungodly brilliance, and our money would quite probably go to the Lambo for that reason alone. Call us dinosaurs if you will, but there just aren't enough naturally aspirated engines in the world any more, and you can check out our video of the Audi R8 RWS to get a really good earful of why we reckon this V10 makes us quite so dewey-eyed and nostalgic for non-turbo engines. 

But yes, the Ferrari with its brutal V8 takes the win here with some ease. The next question is will the Pista beat the Performante's ludicrous 'Ring time? We'd bet that it will, but we'll have to wait and see.

Galleries

Gallery: 2018 Ferrari 488 Pista prototype

Gallery: 2017 Lamborghini Huracán Performante

Gallery: Ferrari 488 Pista at the Geneva motor show

Gallery: 2017 Lamborghini Huracan Performante: First Drive