► Meet the Amalfi Spider
► Ferrari takes the roof off
► But keeps the style and speed
This is the new Ferrari Amalfi Spider, a soft-top version of Maranello’s V8-powered cruiser. As you’d expect, the key figures are roughly the same, but Ferrari’s engineers – and stylists – have put in extra effort to make sure it’s not just a heavier, slower car with the roof chopped off.
To that end there’s some decent changes afoot – keep reading to find out more.
Let’s start with the roof. It’ll come in six different combinations of material and colour, and all will use a five-layer construction. Ferrari says its technology means that the Amalfi Spider’s fabric roof has similar levels of noise insulation to a hard top. The result? You get the comfort and refinement without of a hard top of with weight and storage benefits of a soft top instead.
The interior designers at Maranello have also focused on making the roof a part of the car, rather than a slightly odd fitting flat cap. With that in mind, the silhouette of the roof closely follows the roofline of the Amalfi Coupe. What’s more, the rear of the cabin also curves from and out of the boot area in a way that’s sympathetic to the existing lines of the car. The whole thing is super cohesive in person.
There’s been tinkering with the interior and trim too. For example, a section of textile reaches out t beyond the cabin – making the fabric roof feel even more integral to the design of the car. What’s more, customers can also opt for the matching roof textiles on the door cards and headrests, bringing the outside in and joining the whole thing up some more.
The new roof will open and close in 13.5 seconds at speeds of up to 37mph. When the roof is up, the boot has 255-litres of capacity, and that reduces to 172-litres when it’s down. It doesn’t sound like too much – but it’s enough for a two weekend bags, or a bag and set of clubs. That’s the exact use case of Maranello’s entry-level tourer.
The roof comes with a weight penalty of just over 80kg over the standard car, and that comes from a mixture of both extra strengthening to bring back rigidity, as well as the roof mechanism itself. It also sticks with the same 3.9-litre V8 turbo as the Amalfi, good for 631bhp at 7500rpm, 561lb ft of torque at 3000rpm.
Despite the extra weight, the Spider however is as fast as the Coupe, hitting 0-62mph in just 3.3 seconds – and with the same top speed of 199mph. It’s a little slower to 124mph, though.
To cope with the power, the Spider also gets the same three-level spoiler as the normal car, though its deployment is entirely decided by the car’s ECU rather than the driver.
When it’s released expect it to command a premium over the Amalfi’s £202,000 asking price – so something closer to £220,000.
Curtis Moldrich is CAR magazine’s Digital Editor and has worked for the brand for the past five years. He’s responsible for online strategy, including CAR’s website, social media channels such as X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook, and helps on wider platform strategy as CAR magazine branches out on to Apple News+ and more.
By Curtis Moldrich
CAR's Digital Editor, F1 and sim-racing enthusiast. Partial to clever tech and sports bikes