You’re Going To Have One Of Two Opinions On This Liberty Walk Ferrari 458

A lot of people will argue that the Ferrari 458 Italia doesn’t need a single thing changing about it; that it sat right at the crossing point between Ferrari’s richly emotional cars of old and its hyper-techy modern stuff.

Of course, Liberty Walk, the Japanese purveyor of outrageous widebody kits, cares not what these people think. It’s turned its attention to cows as sacred as the Ferrari F40 and Lamborghini Countach and Miura (although that last one was actually just a replica). Trifling with a 458 is a drop in the ocean of the sort of things it does to incense purists, but even so, we suspect that this LW 458 we’ve found for sale might split some opinions.

A 2010 458 Italia, it spent between 2016 and 2019 in Japan, having this elaborate carbon fibre bodykit fitted, a process that took so long because it apparently involved disassembling the entire car and rebuilding it nearly from scratch. It’s thought to be the only car in Europe – quite possibly the world – wearing this exact design.

It’s not just the bodywork that’s been radically altered since the car left Maranello, either. It’s apparently sitting on a prototype carbon fibre suspension system from tuning company Novitec. We can’t really dig out any extra info on this, but it certainly gives the car a pretty mean stance.

If you are a purist, and tears are falling onto your Prancing Horse-branded polo shirt reading this, then you’ll be pleased to know that the other thing everyone loved the 458 for – its wailing 4.5-litre, 562bhp V8 – has been left alone in this car’s transformation. Oh, and it’s still Rosso Corsa.

Having spent most of its life in Hong Kong, the car is now in the UK, and up for auction with Car and Classic. As we write this, with four days left to go on the auction, the highest bid is £70,500. How much would you pay to see some of the arguments this car will inevitably cause?