Ferrari California 2008 review

Ferrari does not quote a gearchange time because as the next gear is always pre-engaged, the shift is ‘effectively immediate.’ A manual transmission will be available later next year but Ferrari anticipates a less than 10 per cent take up.

There’s a small philosophical shift in the California’s suspension, which now comes with the double wishbones you expect at the front, but eschews them at the back, preferring a multi-link arrangement. Like all other new Ferraris, carbon ceramic disc brakes are standard.

The hard-top folds fairly conventionally, by stacking the rear windscreen on top of the roof, whereupon both sections disappear under the boot cover; but this being a Ferrari, it has to do it quicker than everyone else. For most convertibles, a time of around 20 seconds to turn into a coupe is the norm. We timed the California at 14sec.

What’s it like?

Spend too long in the company of the spec sheet and you’ll start to ponder whether it even deserves to have a prancing horse on its nose.

With 30bhp less than an F430, but a kerbweight higher than a 599GTB, the California could be accused of having not enough power and being asked to do too much.

Even Ferrari concedes that its claimed sub-4sec 0-62mph time has more to do with the efficiency of its launch control, the non-existent gear shift intervals and the closeness of its ratios than the punch from its engine.

Visually the California looks reasonably well proportioned in the metal, but poorly detailed inside and out: the crease going up the door doesn’t work, the back of the car is rather too busy while in the cabin the main analogue instruments are unattractive and not helped by an adjacent screen for relaying less important information.

Not the most prepossessing of starts for such a car, you’ll agree. What is needed is five minutes at the wheel on a decent road. Then all those concerns and fears vanish like a wisp of smoke in a stiff breeze. This car doesn’t just deserve to be thought of as a Ferrari, it is a fine Ferrari at that.

It feels quicker by far than its power and weight figures suggest, and more than capable of matching Ferrari’s lofty performance claims. The engine has a truly split personality, gently stirring at part throttle, riotously enthusiastic when summoned to real work and outrageously, subversively, gloriously rude as you grab another gear at 8000rpm.

And Ferrari is right about the shift: if there is a pause between gears, I could not detect it. But, and for once, the engine of this Ferrari is forced into a supporting role by its chassis.

There are, of course, many cars that will grip harder than this: cars with highly specialised rubber, cars with engines behind their drivers, cars that weigh a whole lot less than this. Indeed at times, on slippery road surfaces, the California can fail quite spectacularly to follow your intended path through a corner.

But where, in a mid-engined car, this might lead to one of those sudden-trip-to-the-dry-cleaners moments, in the California it’s just an excuse for it to show its natural balance and the progressive nature of its breakaway characteristics.

Whatever its other limitations may be - and if you believe only one thing from this review - believe that this is the most forgiving, best balanced car Ferrari makes.