Ferrari’s blast from the past

The Prancing Horse brand has revealed its first soft-top, front-engine sports car in more than 50 years – the Ferrari Roma Spider.

The replacement for the Portofino M, the Roma Spider joins the hard-top coupe in the line-up. The last time Ferrari offered a front-engine convertible with a soft-top roof (as opposed to the folding hard-top on the Portofino and its California predecessor) was the 365 GTS/4 ‘Daytona’ back in 1973.

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The Roma Spider retains the same powertrain as the coupe, which means there’s a 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8 under the bonnet. It makes 456kW of power and 760Nm of torque and despite weighing 84kg more than the coupe, it will still run 0-100km/h in a seriously rapid 3.4 seconds.

The roof itself can retract at speeds of up to 60km/h and do so in just 13.5 seconds – half a second quicker than the Portofino’s metal lid.

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Inside the Roma Spider features the same ‘2+’ seating arrangement, which appears to feature two very small rear seats behind the front chairs that allow for extra passengers; albeit it tight quarters.

Ferrari Australia hasn’t released pricing for the Rome Spider yet, but will likely be similar to the out-going Portofino, which is priced from $455,000. First deliveries of the new model to Australia are expected either late in 2023 of by early 2024 at the latest.