You don't have to do much to a Ferrari to make it impressive. Drive a stock-as-can-be prancing pony down almost any street, Rodeo Drive included, and we'll bet it will impress everyone. The only thing that would wow us more is a full audio system in one. Consider us impressed, then, by Alexander Menzel's 360 Challenge Stradale Spider.
Aready eye-catching, the car was destined for modifications when Menzel, owner of Meridian Automotive Design, got his hands on the keys. Using Challenge and Stradale parts, they transformed the vehicle into a convertible. Then came the audio/video mods. The factory head unit was ditched in favor of a Kenwood XXV-05V 7-inch in-dash monitor. Part of Kenwood's 25th anniversary line, it displays the video from a PlayStation 2 mounted on a rollout tray in the glove box, navigation info and feed from a backup camera. Extra audio runs from a Sirius Satellite Radio tuner, an HD tuner, an iPod custom mounted on the center console, and phone calls made possible with a Bluetooth module the installers took apart and refashioned near the rear-view mirror.
The entire vehicle received a dose of Cascade sound damping material to eliminate the noise and rattles the Meridian-designed speakers would have inevitably produced. Installing 3-way component systems in the doors required carving a place for the 2 1/2" midrange with a carbon-fiber dome. The 6 1/2" midbass kept to the factory location. For the larger 1" tweeter, Meridian made a mold of the existing factory enclosure and created a new one from it. The last speakers, 10" subwoofers, sound from a carbon-fiber enclosure behind the seats.
In addition to the Zapco EQ30-SL 1/3-octave equalizer under the passenger seat, the head unit's signal routes through two beautiful Audison Thesis HV Venti amps under the hood. Carbon fiber flushes them in. In the trunk, four 400 Batcap batteries (the fifth, an Optima Yellow Top, is in the factory location) are hidden by fiberglass panels. They sometimes get an energy boost from the trickle charging system that ensures the system never runs out of power.
Though Menzel is a member of several Southern Californian Ferrari clubs, he mainly uses the car for cruising instead of competing. When he's not sitting in it and listening to the new audio system, Menzel puts it to work as a demo car for Meridian Automotive.
Tech
Stradale side skirts and front and rear fasciae
19" Stradale wheels
Stradale ceramic brakes
90-way adjustable titanium
coil overs by Meridian
Capristo exhaust system
Gruppe M air intake