Ferrari California T 2015

FERRARI CALIFORNIA T Suntanned California has always been a place where people come to experiment with their identity. Thus, the name is perfect for Ferrari’s lowest-priced model, which has been an experiment since it first hit the streets in 2009. It was the first roadgoing Ferrari to put a V-8 in front of its driver and the first with a power-retractable hardtop, and its price and daily practicality took Ferrari on a low pass through the market. It probably should have been a Maserati, as it would have done far more to elevate that brand than it does for Ferrari, but the ball didn’t bounce that way. Secretive Ferrari won’t say how the California sells, but judging by the plethora of low-mileage examples parked on eBay with heavily depreciated prices, the market is perhaps lukewarm. The revamped California T—just 14 seconds turns this well-insulated hardtop coupe into a convertible—fixes what may have gone wrong with the old model, including a challenged power-to-weight ratio and styling that evoked a pouting teenager more than the snarling stallions of Maranello. The T stands for turbo, of course, and in this regard the California, with its twin compressors hanging from a smaller 3.9-liter V-8 with a signature flat-plane crankshaft, is being experimental yet again. This is the first forced-induction street Ferrari since the F40, and so it is the pathfinder for the many turbocharged Ferraris to come, starting with the 488GTB, set to arrive early next year. The new sheetmetal picks up themes from the F12berlinetta, replacing the soft roundness and elliptical headlights with Ferrari’s newer angular look. That includes more scalloping for ducts and vents, and the droopy black inset panel in back is gone and unlamented, as are the silly stacked pipes that helped heighten the car’s already-tall tush and give it a fake, forced showiness. The new car’s sleeker form can’t hide the fact that it’s a big machine, being three full inches longer than a Chevy Corvette Stingray, as well as a bit wider, a bit taller, and way heavier at 4064 pounds. Even so, that’s 59 pounds lighter than our last California tester, and there’s 101 more horsepower and 199 more pound-feet of torque to motivate it. Hence, the 60-mph sprint plunges from 3.9 seconds to an astonishing (really, almost unbelievable) 3.3, with a full second knocked off the quarter-mile. And a 0.95-g skidpad performance means there’s more grip to go with the extra kick. Okay, so it’s finally Ferrari-fast. But a Ferrari has always been less about numbers than about being a crackling Tesla coil spitting lightning bolts. The new direct-injection V-8 barks into combustion, and it sounds every decibel the snarling, pissed-off puma that other Ferraris do. Hidden exhaust flaps somewhere under the car flutter as necessary to uncork and recork the growling on cue. A Ferrari throttle has always given you precisely what you want, and the California T is, blessedly, no exception. Mat it to elicit the telltale wheeze of the turbos. As the boost builds to its 18.9-psi peak, the revs and power ramp up, but only with the slightest of kinks to the dyno trace. The redheaded V-8 delivers the goods with almost, if not quite, the organic smoothness of the Ferraris in Fangio’s day. It gathers speed in any gear and with haste proportionate to the pedal squeeze. The lag is short and glossed over, the V-8 just going when you ask it, exactly at the speed you ask of it. That bodes well for the 488GTB and turbocharged Ferraris yet to be born. The California also stops with ferocity, but the standard carbon-ceramic brakes proved suppler at city speeds than others we’ve tried, behaving like iron brakes in all the best ways. With 47 percent of its weight on the front axle, the California T is rightly balanced and the steering reflects it, aiming the nose into corners with friction-free lubricity and a thrilling subtlety that matches the other controls. The $5568 you must spend for Magnaride shocks on top of the California’s $202,723 base price is money well used. With it, the California feels as if it has yards of suspension travel over the bumps, yet restrains body roll and understeer when you’re hunting apexes. Here, again, everything is served in proportion to your demand, from steering angles to ride stiffness. One of the great joys in life is piloting this (or any other) Ferrari up a slithering road, top folded, the cylinders wailing an operatic octet as the red LED lights on the steering rim flicker. Voltage? This car produces it with uranium rods. When you buy a Ferrari, you buy tradition expressed in aromatic panels of French-stitched leather, flat and rigidly firm bucket seats, and a familiar dashboard of simple circles augmented by a few conventional display screens. It’s definitely old school compared with, say, McLaren’s all-suede architectural cockpits, where the touch screens and buttons seem designed in the Infinite Loop. In the California T, a carbon-fiber arch dividing the center console, part of a $7761 carbon dress-up package, is the riskiest design flourish. The rest, from the large analog tach to the data screen next to it, is Ferrari convention. It takes time, but eventually you appreciate the California’s practicality. Evoking its many years in the F1 coal mine, the busy steering wheel is where Ferrari puts all the old stalk controls. Using the turn signals is as simple as squeezing your palm, the wiper control reduced to a single multiaction button. The manettino knob gives you the choice of comfort, sport, and Mamma Mia mode, which switches off all the aids. A button marked “pit speed” seems a little precious in this, the Ferrari least likely to see a track. Thoughtfully, Ferrari lets you pick sport for the throttle and transmission settings but retain the softer shock setting if your roads aren’t smooth. Go forth and commute. Unexpected conveniences: folding rear seats that reveal a tunnel into the large trunk for longer items; plenty of console clutter space; radio buttons on the backside of the steering wheel; a USB port. Typical (for an Italian car) inconveniences: the strange infotainment unit; poor radio reception; and a single 12-volt socket far from the windshield. Next year, Ferrari finally offers keyless operation, but for now you still get the vintage red-plastic-encased key that will suitably impress the valets. Fanatics in red jackets may look down on it, and the option pricing gets silly (21 of its 28 available colors cost $12,486 extra), but the California T is more enthralling than its direct competitors, namely the Aston Martin DB9 and Bentley Continental GTC, and more passionate than the anodyne Porsche 911 Turbo S. It is your daily dose of Ferrari.