Breathtaking Ferrari 2+ Seater!
Sep 30th 2010Charles Philip GranereCars
Ferrari can do many things other car companies cannot, including building a machine that links past with present and that tries, however successfully, to be the fastest car to the market and back. The Ferrari California, premiering in 2008, takes its name from a 50-year-old classic while introducing some modern-day developments. It's the first Ferrari to sport a retractable hardtop, to rock a dual-clutch 7-speed transmission, and the first to wield a front-engine V8. It's also got something called backseats, which seems like a cute concept for a Ferrari -- a "2+" is the technical term. And as a result of this transmission it presents at least one last: The last Ferrari to offer a manual gearbox. Anyway who wants to deal with complaints from the backseat?
This is a Ferrari after all, and it makes no apologies for conceding a few extra seats. Oh, and you're of course invited to come along.
Speaking of flying, you probably remember the California's ancestors from a movie called "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." The mythic car in that film was a (say it with me now) 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder. You'll remember the most famous dignitary of the 250 series as the car in the 1986 John Hughes classic "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." That was a 1961 Ferrari 250 GT Spyder California, one of few than a hundred cars (as noted by Cameron). (The car in the movie was a replica, not an actual 250, because if it had been, Ferrari enthusiasts would have burned down Hollywood had Hughes actually destroyed one of the rare beauties.)
So the new series, which could just as easily have been called the "Utah" or the "Connecticut," adopts the name of that 50-year-old classic and lays in all the new gadgetry of this, the modern era. But anyway yes the new California gets its name from those cars of yore, and while it's sure a fine product from those Italian fellows, it seems to have gotten a lot of gossip about being a "nice" car.
But in the canon of Ferrari's aggressively powerful cars, the California has already gotten a bit of a rep for being nice. It's lovely, but not shockingly so. Very fast but in a controlled way. And while the front end brings to mind, say, a dignified Aston-Martin, the rear gets a lot of grief for being a bit too big.
But Ferrari was serious when it decided to build a car that could perform but could also fit a small child (say, the child of your mistress) in the back seat. A little something for everyone, it seems. Everyone who has $230,000 and a wish to take your best normal-sized friend and your best small friends for an exhilarating trip.
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