"Ferrari North Europe has officially explained the fault that has caused five of the very earliest examples of its 458 supercar to catch fire.

"When the car is driven to high exhaust temperatures, in hot ambient temperatures, the adhesive used in the wheelarch assemblies can overheat and allow the rear wheel housing heat shields to move around. In extreme cases, the glue can begin to smoke and even catch fire," a Ferrari spokesperson told Autocar.

"It would only be a problem on cars driven very hard, and has only affected a handful of the 1248 458 Italias we've delivered so far – none in the UK,” our source confirmed.

Ferrari claims that the problem has been made to look more serious than it should because of unfortunate timing and innaccurate reporting. A new 458 was written off because of a warehouse fire recently, and others have been crashed, the firm says, causing some areas of the media to suggest the car is 'jinxed'.

Ferrari will recall all of the 458s delivered so far to fit new wheelarch liners, which will be attached more securely. It will also be replacing any cars that have been damaged as a result of the problem. All new 458s built now that Ferrari’s Maranello plant has re-opened after the summer shutdown will be rectified before they leave the factory"

Burning Ferrari 458
 

"It would only be a problem on cars driven very hard" says the fine folk at Ferrari.... (i) Driving in down town Paris is hardly what I call driving hard driving & (ii) aren't they supposed to be built to be driven hard anyway???

No offense to the Ferrari followers but this is typical of the make. There are countless videos of burning F430s and F360s on youtube- its just that the F458 is just better at it. Typical of the Italian engineers- no idea... when you slap a hard working, heat generating V8 in the centre of a car, you have to carefully choose the materials and the clearances of the surrounding components to ensure this isn't an issue. What moron uses adhesives and poorly fitting wheel arches within centimeters of an engine and exhaust running in the hundreds of degrees... go figure...