Supposed as a up to date tackle the stylish, pleasure-seeking Italian life-style of the Fifties and 60s, Ferrari’s 2025 Roma Spider can also be at house in an American setting that harks again to a earlier mannequin title, the California.
Ferrari retired the California in 2017, when the convertible two-door four-seater that wore its title exited manufacturing. The Portofino adopted that very same yr, its title chosen to conjure pictures of the Italian Riviera. It launched vital structural and mechanical enhancements, finally doubling as the muse upon which Ferrari constructed the beautiful Roma Coupe. Nonetheless, after driving the Portofino’s successor, the Roma Spider, by Los Angeles, it’s clear that its Californian spirit transcends the title.
You’d be shocked at how little of an impact chopping the roof off a automobile can have on its persona. Take an Aston Martin DB12 or a Porsche 911 Turbo S, morph them into Volante and Cabriolet kind, and the use case stays the identical. Simply stash some sunscreen within the glove field, and also you’re good to go. This isn’t the case on the subject of the Roma Spider. Its transition from exhausting high to convertible utterly modifications the way you drive it and, extra importantly, the place.
Take the Roma Coupe, marketed closely by Ferrari after the spirit of La Dolce Vita. Its low, sloping roofline and Nineteen Sixties-inspired curves conjure pictures of pulling as much as red-carpet premieres or extravagant events hidden deep throughout the metropolis. It captures the essence of the Bond impact that’s pushed Aston gross sales for many years. By proudly owning one, you would possibly inherit a number of the traits of the brooding, mysterious character that might drive one on the large display.
In distinction, though equally positioned as La Nuova Dolce Vita, the Roma Spider trades late-night escapades for sunny days on the West Coast. It’s mechanically similar to the Coupe, drawing energy from the identical 612-horsepower, 3.9-liter twin-turbocharged V8. Nonetheless, it encourages a much more relaxed angle behind the wheel. The place the Coupe is an athletic GT, encouraging you to bounce up a canyon highway with simply manageable slides, the Spider needs you to take issues down a notch.
Its dry weight determine rises from 3,245 kilos for the Coupe to the three,430-lb Spider. An additional 185 lb is just not an inconsiderable sum, but it surely hardly issues on this automobile’s case. If efficiency is what you’re after, its 3.4-second dash to 62 mph ought to nonetheless be loads, as will its 199 mph high velocity. That is nonetheless a front-engine, rear-drive Ferrari, and its dual-clutch automated strikes by gears quickly. You may even gentle the rears if you need.
As a substitute, you’ll need to put the highest down, interact the built-in automated wind deflector, and luxuriate in its comfy magnetic trip suspension on a cruise up the coast. So far as grand touring goes, it has the Coupe beat when it comes to versatility. Its roof stows in 13.5 seconds at as much as 37 mph, bringing you nearer to the word emanating from its quad exhaust ideas. Its inside is the very best of any present manufacturing Prancing Horse, sporting a separate central infotainment display that considerably will increase its usability. The cabin isolation is superb regardless of, in my tester’s case, buying and selling its predecessor’s metallic folding roof for a denim one.
Ferrari went to nice lengths to make sure that the rear headrests movement seamlessly into the redesigned rear deck and its consideration to element pays dividends. The Roma Spider is beautiful in its personal proper. Nonetheless, this tester’s Verde Masoni Opaco exterior, black wheels, and big fender shields lean extra into sporty territory than a sublime cruiser. Nonetheless, the Spider retains the identical sloping roofline that makes the Coupe a stunner.
This tester begins at $272,970 however, because of a hefty choices checklist, reaches an as-tested value of $435,809. The Ferrari Roma Spider’s persona breaks away from the Coupe in welcomed methods. It’s nonetheless a beautiful two-seater that makes incredible V8 noises and is as fast as you’d need from a Ferrari. Whereas its weight positive aspects have an effect on its dealing with, it doesn’t cease it from being a superb grand tourer, the perfect automobile to benefit from the West Coast sunshine. In any case, its affect over the Prancing Horse dates again to the sensational 250 GT California Spyder of the Fifties.
Stats:
- Engine: 3.9-liter twin-turbocharged V8
- HP 612
- Torque 562
- Drive Rear-Wheel
- Transmission 8-Velocity Twin-Clutch Auto
- 0-62: 3.4
- Prime Velocity: 199 MPH
- Base Worth: $272,970
- As-Examined Worth: $435,809
This text appeared in our March 2025 Concern.
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