Is the new Roma Spider Ferrari’s ‘most beautiful’ convertible?
The Italian sports car brand has injected some fresh air into its front-engine V8-powered design, with a soft top to complement its sleek silhouette.
Ferrari has set the Australian price of the Ferrari Roma Spider at $520,300, plus on-road costs and options.
That makes the new convertible Roma $67,000 dearer than the tin-top, first produced in 2021, and $116,000 more expensive than the Portofino T convertible that it effectively replaces.
The Roma is widely acclaimed as one of the most beautiful modern Ferraris.
The steeply escalating prices of the past few years are part of a publicly stated policy and haven’t dented sales so far. Ferrari sold a record 13,221 new cars worldwide last year and is on track to do even better in 2023. It claims its order book stretches in 2025, spurred along by the great success of the higher riding four-door Purosangue, and a range of limited-edition sports cars.
The Roma coupe was designed to capture the spirit – though not the retro lines – of coach-built 1960s Ferrari coupes. It has been widely acclaimed as one of the most beautiful modern Ferraris. Head designer Flavio Manzoni says the choice of a soft top for the Roma Spider, rather than the convertible-hardtop used on the Portofino and earlier California, was essential to keeping similar proportions.
The new convertible Ferrari Roma Spider is $67,000 dearer than the tin-top, first produced in 2021.
“It was quite challenging,” Manzoni tells Life & Leisure, “because the Roma was born thinking about this very elegant and pure shape. The idea was to make Formula 1 in evening dress attire, and the question was, how to make the open version ... preserve the beauty of this low tail.”
The coupe’s low tail was made possible by having an active rear spoiler to provide the necessary downforce at high speed, and this has been carried over for the Spider. “We wanted absolutely to maintain the same silhouette,” says Manzoni, pointing out a convertible hardtop would have required a higher rear section.
The Roma Spider’s retractable soft top.
As with the coupe, the Spider has a two-plus-two seating arrangement and is powered by a twin-turbo V8 developing 456kW and 760Nm. It weighs 84 kilograms more than the coupe, but the company claims that is necessary to maintain similar torsional rigidity without the extra bracing of a metal roof.
At the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in California, where we spoke to Manzoni, Ferrari had gathered perhaps the largest collection ever of new and classic models. It displayed the Roma Spider alongside the aggressively styled, be-winged SF90 XX plug-in hybrid coupe.
Manzoni loves that his studio has the job of producing cars with such a broad range. “It’s always a matter of vocabulary, of lexicon. We can go in our range from the most elegant Ferrari GT, which is the Roma, an example of purity and very solid and very monolithic shape.
Ferrari head designer Flavio Manzoni wanted to preserve the low-tail silhouette.
“[Then] there is another type of stylistic code … and when we have to create a track-only car, or in this case an XX which is also street legal for the first time, then we can be a little bit more radical, more racing-like and extreme in the design language. That’s because we don’t have to necessarily look for the simplicity or purity.”
The first deliveries of Roma Spiders to Australia customers are expected in the second quarter of next year.
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