It’s back to the Sixties for Ferrari with its new soft-top Roma Spider. Think La Dolce Vita, they told us. It’s a highly one-sided view. You are directed to Federico Fellini’s eponymous Palme d’Or and Oscar-winning 1960 movie, immaculately shot in Rome and the eternal city’s Cinecittà studios: the frocks; the suits; the style of the film’s stars Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg; and of course, soft-top motoring through the glossy pages of an Italian tourist-board brochure.
What you need to forget is that this black-and-white movie is a sharp-witted satire on the behaviour of political establishment, show business and the aristocracy in post-war Rome and Italy in general. That the hero car is a Triumph TR3 not a Ferrari, or that soft tops tend to tear your fingernails, leak, flap around and live short lives, which is probably why the last front-engined fabric-roofed Ferrari, the 365 GTS, was launched 54 years ago.
Fairy stories
But then soft-top motoring was always a bit of fairy story we tell ourselves, a bit like the idea of a two-plus-two configuration, where tiny vestigial rear seats might possibly carry friends rather than expensive shopping in small bags. The Roma Spider has just such a cabin, with rear seats further obscured by a motorised air deflector, which sits horizontally over the rear seats and works quite well at keeping your barnet in order.
The price of all this is pretty hair raising, though, especially as this is supposed to be an entry-level Ferrari. The ‘entry price’ of this club is £210,313 AUD $421,000 (£27,638 more than the Roma coupe), but the options list is long, convoluted and very, very expensive. Moreover, this car’s predecessor, the Portofino cabriolet, which is only just going out of production, was one of the fastest depreciating supercars of last year. According to cap hpi, it lost an average of £8,700 or about 7.3 per cent of its value.
Yet still they come to worship at the exotic altar of these cars. In the UK, supercar sales last year were higher than ever before, with sales of over 18,000, up 20 per cent on 2021. In the face of such demand, Ferrari can’t help itself. Three years ago, at the launch of the Roma coupe, its total annual production was just over 10,000; this year it expects to build just under 13,000. In the UK, there’s a 12-month waiting list for the Roma Spider.
Great looker
Expensive it might be, but there’s little denying what a terrific-looking car this is. The coachwork is the same as the coupe from the bonnet to the rear of the doors, which is no bad thing. From there rearward are a series of gently and pleasingly curving panels to the tail lamps, with a nicely realised rear deck incorporating an automatic rear spoiler, which can be ordered in a variety of colours to match the hood and the bodywork.
The five-layer motorised hood can be furled in just 13.5 seconds at speeds up to 37mph and looks as well-finished, leak-proof and long-lasting as any motorised hard top. It’s finished in a slightly shiny bird’s-eye fabric and Ferrari claims that in the cabin it is as quiet and refined as the coupe.
While the chassis isn’t all new, there are stronger sill sections, a new rear floor and the windscreen pillars are beefed up along with a series of changes to the top of the B pillars just behind the doors. The automatically deploying roll-over hoops are hidden under the fast-back head rests.
The strengthening adds 84kg to the kerb weight and the Spider has 30 per cent less torsional rigidity than the coupe. How heavy? The quoted dry weight of 1,556kg is only achievable with around £25,000’s worth of carbon fibre parts, so reckon that a standard Spider in road-going trim is going to tip the scales at about 1.7 tonnes.
The cabin
The seats feel wide and plush though not fantastically supportive. There’s a lot of room around the front-seat passengers though the storage space is mean and the door pockets are slim and shallow. The pedal box is large, but those with a larger shoe size will find their toes brushing against the bottom of the dashboard.
Views straight out to the front over the humped bonnet and wings are pretty good, but the massive windscreen pillars obscure the apex of sharp corners and the views out of the glass rear screen are only slightly better than staring through a letter-box slot.
The instrument cluster is bright and cheerful, but chaotic and quite hard to understand, especially at a glance. You have to switch the steering wheel switches on with another steering-wheel switch, which defies any sort of logic. The central portrait touch screen is as good as most and better than a Volkswagen, but the heater controls are buried in there, which seems like a mistake.
Roma Spider is the first-ever Ferrari to adopt the mandated lane-keeping assistance. Thankfully it’s relatively simple to switch it off. Luggage space is limited, with a tiny 255-litre boot, which is halved if you have the hood furled. The rear seats then come into their own for luggage storage, although your stuff is then in plain sight in a fabric-roof car, which means not very secure at all.
On the move
The 3,855cc, 90-degree, quad-cam, biturbo V8 is a straight lift from the coupe model. While few would argue with its output of 612bhp at 5,750rpm, it’s the 516lb ft at 3,000rpm torque figure which gives the game away, especially when combined with an eight-speed dual-clutch transmission. Basically, you don’t have to rev this engine to make very fast progress. The gear ratios are adapted to suit with a longer seventh and eighth to bring down the revs at cruising speeds. Top speed is quoted at a barely relevant 199mph, with 0-62mph in 3.4sec, a WLTP fuel consumption of 24.8mpg and CO2 emissions of 258g/km.
Control of the gearbox is another Ferrari puzzle. There are controls on the transmission tunnel to select drive, manual and automatic and reverse, but to get out of reverse you have to pull on both steering wheel paddles, and the parking brake is situated, American-style, down by your knee. Tug on the right-hand steering wheel paddle and the system engages first auto, which is how the car pulls away.
There a wealth of different suspension rates and settings, including the electronically powered steering system and the £3,390 optional magnetorehological dampers which were fitted to the test cars. As ever the steering-wheel switch (manettino) engages them all, as well as the ‘bumpy road’ setting which, when engaged in Sport setting, is probably the best combination for the public road.
The launch was held in Sardinia, which has a combination of poor- and medium-surfaced roads, but without the heavy ‘crowning’ of a typical British road. Pull away and the ride feels compliant, although those 20-inch Bridgestone tyres are apt to make their presence felt on sharp-edged bumps and potholes. There is also a fair bit of transverse weight transfer so your head nods from side to side and you can feel the body flexing on even minor bumps, especially when the car is already loaded up in the middle of a corner.
If the ride and flexing is all typical of this sort of drophead version of an existing coupe, the response and gearing isn’t. The gearing is super long, the kickdown is slow and reluctant to change down more than one gear, and the throttle has a long travel. What results is a safe car, but one that feels on the slow side for something with so much power – and also slow to react. With a buzzing V8 which barely changes the quality of its note, the Roma Spider feels a bit disappointing at first.
The Roma Spider: a faithful companion with a decent ride quality and quite lovely looks CREDIT: Mauro Ujetto
You really need to go looking for the performance, although once you’ve found it, in Race mode, using the gearbox manually, you find this car to be extraordinarily quick, especially the build of acceleration between 3,000 and 6,000rpm. Fortunately, the huge discs scrub off speed quickly and efficiently, and the stability electronics, which include that electronically actuated limited-slip differential, work tirelessly in the background keeping you safe.
Quite what the effect of these stability systems is on the steering, however, is difficult to work out. What is clear, however, is that the Roma Spider combines the coupe’s slightly numb feel on initial turn in, with an unpredictable swoopiness, which means that you are never quite sure you can trust the helm of this otherwise grippy and super fast cabrio.
Verdict
Please don’t walk away thinking this all sounds like a deeply flawed motorcar, because on the right roads, at all speeds up to dizzyingly fast, the Roma Spider is a faithful companion with a decent ride quality and quite lovely looks. Perhaps the disappointment is in the precautions Ferrari’s engineers have had to take when confronted with a front-engined car of such humongous power and torque, but I’ve got a feeling that there’s probably room to allow the Spider to be a bit wilder without terrifying its occupants or messing with la dolce vita of it all. There’s a lot of competition arriving for this car in the next couple of years from Mercedes-AMG and Aston Martin (though both use the same drivetrain) and as it stands Roma Spider leaves some wiggle room for those two to walk on the wilder side.
The facts
On test: Ferrari Roma Spider
Body style: two-plus-two sports drophead
On sale: on sale now with first deliveries in early 2024 with a 12-month waiting list.
How much? From £210,313 or AUD$421,000
How fast? 199mph/0-62mph in 3.4sec
How economical? 24.8mpg WLTP Combined
Engine and gearbox: 3,855cc, V8 twin-turbo petrol engine with eight-speed twin-clutch transmission rear-wheel drive.
Maximum power/torque: 612bhp @ 5,750rpm/561lb ft @ 3,000 – 5,750rpm
CO2 emissions: 258g/km
Warranty: 4 years, with 7-year service agreement
