The phat lady sings

You would think, given the Ferrari F430 Spider's unearthly good looks -- its sheet metal like a fierce, turbulent flow of molten lipstick -- that the car would primarily be a visual experience. And yet, as I sit here reflecting on my week in this car, my brain trembling with San Andreas-like aftershocks and my hair fully locked in the horizontal position, what I remember most is its sound -- or sounds. This thing has more voices than Linda Blair in full antichrist mode.

Tip up the driver's door handle recessed in the car's shoulder line, and from deep within come the whirring sounds of pumps and high-pressure hydraulics stirred from their slumber. Uh-oh. Something license-losing this way comes. Swing open the lightweight aluminum door, park your unworthy hinder in the cradling leather seat (upholstered like the best luggage you'll never own), turn the red key and press the start button on the steering wheel. The big, flat-crank V8 spins with a chuffing, pneumatic cough, then lights with an icy-hot bark that swamps all other sounds in the parking deck.

The idle note is polyphonic. There's the altogether unimpressive and tinny flatulence coming from the quad exhausts, combined with the throb of measured detonation of the 4.3-liter, 483-horsepower engine, which is that ungodly thing with the twin red nacelles under the transparent engine cover. Once the engine light on the instrument panel goes off, the oil is warm and the catalytic converters are up to temperature. It's safe to give it the gas. Sort of.

This is not a car for the bashful. The F430 Spider is exactly as loud as four Italian sport bikes glued together, which is to say loud enough to set off jewelry-store burglar alarms and register on governmental homeland security monitors. At part-throttle, the car tries to restrain itself -- it sounds a lot like a trombone played with the mute in. But as soon as the needle on the big yellow tach sweeps past 4,000 rpm, an air-metering drum rotates between the dual air plenums, and then, oh boy. This is the motorized diphthong from hell. BaaaaWHAAAAHHHH!

To double-downshift this car in a tiled tunnel is to experience utter automotive satori. The whopping, snapping overrun sounds made me choke back tears of joy. I know. I'm not well, really. If you want to help, please donate $205,000 to the Dan Neil Ferrari Fund. With research, there is hope.