FERRARI SLICES THE TOP OFF ITS GRAND TOURING ROMA IN A HEART-POUNDING ODE TO THE MID CENTURY SWEET LIFE ALONG THE ITALIAN RIVIERA
BY AMANDA MCCOY
In the months leading up to the Roma Spider’s 2023 unveiling in Marrakesh, autodom was reluctantly mastering a lesson in patience. Shortly after Ferrari introduced the Roma in 2019, the gorgeous 2+2 grand tourer sketched by Ferrari’s senior vice president of design Flavio Manzoni, the Italian super-maker confirmed a topless stallion would soon join the herd. The pandemic kicked off a string of delays, but as crowds gathered within the ancient walls of the El Badi Palace that March, Ferrari finally served the world the Roma Spider, the first soft-top, front-engine dazzler to roll out of Maranello in more than 50 years.
The meal was worth the wait. The pleasure-seeking heyday of 1950s and ‘60s Italia fueled Manzoni’s inspiration behind the coupe and its drop-top brethren, aptly choosing the moniker Roma to christen a grand tourer that, while stuffed with a meaty, high-revving powertrain and eager gearbox, flaunts a sleek, wind-curved silhouette that harkens back to glamour-soaked summers on the Italian coast. (Its tagline is, appropriately, La Nuova Dolce Vita.) The Spider carries the proportions and specs of its enclosed cousin: both are fed by a turbocharged 3.9-liter V-8, garnering 612 Prancing Horses and 561 pound-feet of torque.
Acceleration speeds are identical, clocking 0-62 in 3.4 seconds and blasting to 124 in 9.3. Both models borrow the eight-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission from the souped-up, half-million-dollar racer, the SF90 Stradale, for lightning-quick gear shifts (especially when Race or Sport mode is engaged), putting grit behind the gorgeous face.
As Ferrari’s first soft-top in decades, the Spider features a feast of innovations: the five-layer detachable roof touts similar acoustic insulation to a hard-top, but disappears in a brisk 13.5 seconds up to speeds of 37mph, adding just 185 lbs of additional weight. A clever, patented wind deflector integrated into the rear bench cuts in-cabin turbulence, ensuring primo comfort while slicing through bends along the Italian Riviera.
THE SPIDER took home the top prize in this year’s Red Dot Awards, nabbing the Best of the Best honor in the product design category. It’s another trophy for the Italian marque; Ferrari has won 29 Red Dot Awards in the last decade, the most of any manufacturer.
THE FRONT END MAKES AN ENTRANCE, appearing as if it were chiseled from a single sheet of metal that results in a dramatic overhang with ample perforation to keep the engine cool. The grille is crowned by a pair of linear, full LED headlights encased with horizontal DRL strips.
DESPITE ITS TRACK-HUNGRY PERFORMANCE POINTS, the Spider was built for multi-hour cruises down the coast, thus it’s packed with more creature comforts and high-tech treatments than a typical Prancing Horse, including a 16-inch digital gauge cluster, vertically mounted 8.4-inch touchscreen, and a dedicated passenger screen.
TO MAXIMIZE LUGGAGE SPACE ON LONGER TOURS, the roof occupies a smallest-in-class 220mm when raised, leaving nine cubic feet of space in the boot, also best in class. The soft-roof fabric was developed to dampen wind and road noise for coupe-like silence at highway speeds.
OPEN THE DOORS TO REVEAL a first-class cabin, swathed in sumptuous materials like buttery leather and faux suede
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