Ferrari California first drive: a grander GT in 2016

The Ferrari California T is certainly stylish and grand, but it’s too wimpy for some — not exciting enough to drive, it doesn’t corner as well as some owners might have liked, even though it is a Ferrari down to the very last aluminum bolt and optional carbon-fiber cupholder. To broaden the car’s appeal, Ferrari now offers the HS option, which stands for Handling Speciale, an $8,120 performance package available on all future Ferrari California Ts starting in September. Current California Ts are out of luck as the package cannot be retrofitted.

Handling Speciale includes stiffer springs front and rear to reduce body roll by 7 percent and the rate at which body roll occurs by 8.5 percent; stiffer settings for the magnetic dampers; quicker steering response from the electric rack; and — very important — an extra 3 dB of exhaust note all across the range of audible sound (we don’t know what dogs hear). There are some appearance changes that come with the package, too, including a new front grille and rear air extractor in matte Grigio Ferro Met (that’s a color). 

There’s even an HS plaque in the cockpit to show your buddies.

Specifically, the springs are 16 percent stiffer in front and 19 percent stiffer in back while the magnetically controlled shocks are cranked up to react faster, and even more so in sport mode. The traction control, called F1-Trac logic by Ferrari, is also tuned to provide better acceleration exiting corners and to keep the acceleration going even on bumpy roads. Likewise, the gear shift algorithm is dialed up for faster shifts — 30 percent faster on upshifts and 40 percent faster going down. The exhaust gets a new muffler shape and layout designed to work as a Helmholtz resonator, which Ferrari says “helps to tune the harmonic orders at mid and high revs, producing a cleaner and more powerful sound.”

The drivetrain remains the same: a front-mid-mounted 3.9-liter turbocharged, direct-injected V8 making 553 hp at 7,500 rpm and 557 lb-ft of torque at 4,750 rpm, driving the rear wheels through an “F1” dual-clutch seven speed transmission; 0-62 mph is listed at 3.6 seconds.

What’s it like to drive?

Specifically, does it handle better than the California T without the HS package? This question is interesting. The week before we were to drive the California T HS in Italy, we had been scheduled to drive a California T without the HS package in Los Angeles. Then Ferrari said we could not drive the regular T because they didn’t want our story to be “a comparison between the two.” What else could it possibly be? Did Ferrari not have confidence in its new HS handling package? Or at least in the improvements offered by the HS over the stock T? Thus we are left to assume there is a difference between stock and HS, but we can’t tell you exactly how much. Doesn’t seem like a good move on Ferrari’s part, but it was their T and not ours.

Too bad, because the T with the Handling Speciale package feels good. We drove it along the Italian Riviera, cruising like vacationing oligarchs through off-season beachside townlettes before zipping up into hills still dusted with salt used to clear snow from a recent late-winter storm. Ferrari made clear that the California T, even with the HS option, is still a grand touring car.

“The California T is, to us, a GT car,” said Ferrari’s product manager for the car, Pietro Virgolin.

“We do not want to create a massive sports car because we have those already in our lineup. The California T is for the customer who wants to use the car daily, but they don’t want to use it at the track.”

Hence we had no track time in the T HS.

“Or they want to play with the car in hills like these,” Virgolin added.

So play we did, into the winding two-lanes of the Ligurian hills.

The first thing you notice, of course, is the sound. Push the start button, and the 3.9-liter V8 cracks to life with satisfying braaaap. It’s not too loud — your neighbors won’t bring it up at the next homeowners’ association vigilante committee — but it has a low-volume presence. Ferrari went into detail about how all three of the added decibels occur at all ranges.

For the first section of our drive, cruising through the crowded seaside towns around Portofino, we left the F1 dual-clutch seven-speed gearbox in A (for automatic) and the car was, indeed, every bit the easy daily driver Ferrari said it was. In this environment, you could drive it all day long. And we did.

A week ago we had been driving a Ferrari F12, a late substitute for the canceled California T, and found the steering on the F12 so precise that we never really got the hang of it. The steering on the California T HS is a little more like regular steering. It’s still precise, just not as deathly knife-edge precise as that on the F12, and therefore it’s easier to manipulate.

Likewise, you can feel more weight transfer with the California, just a minute transition as the car hunches its 3,813 pounds from side to side and front to back. It’s far more comfortable to drive on twisting roads, more forgiving, than the F12. The ride quality doesn’t seem to change much between comfort and sport settings. It’s definitely quicker and sharper behind the wheel than the V8-powered Aston Martin Vantage, perhaps closer to an AMG GT in feel. Taken out of automatic mode, the shifter is a rapid-firing delight to paddle through, brapping off gears up and down the range with an almost-immediate crack. However, the California is still, as Ferrari wants, very much a GT. If you want a sports car, try the 488GTB.

Do I want it?

Owning a Ferrari is pretty cool, no matter which one it is, and having one you can easily and comfortably drive every day has its advantages. For a mere $202,723, you can have a California T. Add the $8,120 HS package and you can have a slightly (we assume) better-handling California T that is still every bit as easy to own.

Sounds like a no-brainer, assuming you have the resulting $210,843 sticker price (before you start adding options).

Source: motocar-news.com