THE FERRARI ROMA SPIDER HAS BEEN six years and three CEOs in the making and it’s all the California’s fault. Poor thing can’t catch a break even when it’s been off sale for over half a decade. The car destined to be a Maserati, but which proved too costly for the Trident badge to carry off, soon became a Ferrari to wow and woo first-time customers who weren’t ready for something mid-engined or with a V12 behind its grille. And it worked: 70 per cent of the 17,500 people who bought Californias were new to the brand.
Yet for some at Ferrari it dragged the marque down to a level they didn’t feel comfortable with, then-CEO Sergio Marchionne telling the assembled media at the 2017 Geneva motor show that the model needed a rethink beyond the 2018 update that resulted in the introduction of a turbocharged V8, a design nip and tuck and some revisions to the chassis.
That car, rebadged as Portofino and launched under Louis Camilleri’s tenure as CEO, went some way to making amends, the updated M version introduced in 2021 further
