Portofino: the 3.5-star Ferrari
If there’s such a thing as an entry-level Ferrari, you’re looking at it. But is this every-day drop-top suited to daily life on UK roads?
If you already own a Ferrari, then the Portofino probably isn’t for you. This isn’t a question of brand loyalty but of simple statistics. For every 10 people who bought the old California, its predecessor, just three were repeat customers for Ferrari. The others were lured in fresh – from Mercedes, Bentley and Aston Martin – by a car more usable than the mid-engined F430 Spider but less cripplingly expensive than the V12-engined 599 GTB. And it still was a true Ferrari – at least according to the Scuderia shields. The truth is that although the California broke new ground, it won’t go down as a legendary driver’s car, being too soft and substantial. It was more of a legendary seller. Along with its turbocharged update, the California T of 2014, these cars were made and sold in greater volumes than any other Ferrari in history – and were fired up twice as often by owners, apparently.
So the Portofino will look torepeat that trick of drawing in first-time buyers and naturally it follows the same logic. The 2+2 layout remains, although the rear perches are more useful for carrying a pair of soft-leather duffel bags than one’s friends or family, unless they happen to be small children. Still, there are four seats if you need them. There’s still a retracting metal roof, although even Ferrari couldn’t manage to shave any time off the California’s class-leading 14sec robotised dash. The cabin, still recognisably Ferrari, is somehow less intimidating than those of the Portofino’s stablemates, and the indicator controls have migrated from the ovoid steering wheel to a more traditional location on stalks.
But the vibe has shifted. The Portofino’s body-in-white is a third stiffer than that of its predecessor, the suspension mounts are half again as rigid, and Ferrari claims 80kg has been saved through, in order of increasing magnitude, the engine, electronics, exterior,
interior and chassis. The electromechanical steering is also 7% quicker than that of the hydraulically assisted California T, which itself was 10% more acute than the California’s. Spring rates are also up considerably: 15.5% at the front and 19% at the rear. It all points to something of a personality transplant.
It’s faster, too. Of course it is, hitting 62mph in 3.5sec and going on to nudge 200mph. The only engine available is the twin-turbocharged 90deg 3.9-litre V8 carried over from the California T, but Ferrari has fitted new pistons and conrods that increase combustion pressure and there’s now a modular turbo manifold that puts the exhaust pulses to better use. There’s also a new intercooler and exhaust and the engine breathes more deeply thanks to bigger-bore intake pipes. At 82.0mm, the stroke is marginally shorter than that of the closely related engine of the 488 GTB, and the displacement is commensurately smaller, but both use a flat-plane crankshaft and are dry-sumped. Peel up the featherweight bonnet and you get the same theatre, too. Framed by aluminium strut braces, a pair of vivid cam covers greets you from a place reassuringly far behind the axle line.
Looks are subjective, but there’s no denying that the less bulbous Portofino is much prettier than its predecessor, too. A bottom-feeding front bumper might ape, a little gormlessly, that of the Mantisesque 812 Superfast, but the overall proportions could draw crowds. We said so on the car’s launch in Italy last year, but even on a horribly soggy day in Surrey, it’s clear that Ferrari has condensed the classic silhouette of its V12 flagship into a muscular fastback. Since parting ways with Pininfarina after the F12 Berlinetta, it hasn’t achieved the same level of elegance it once did, but the Portofino’s deliciously crisp trailing edge and subtle buttresses atop the rear deck show improvement. Let’s put it like this: Ferrari says the Portofino is inspired by the 1968 Daytona, and with the roof up, you can just about see that. If you squint.
So how well, once you’re inside, does the everyday Ferrari work on a particularly everyday kind of day? Perhaps today is even too everyday. It’s wet, but not to the extent that one dare not drive with any conviction. In line with Ferrari policy at this time of (an unseasonably warm) year, our car’s forged 20in alloys wear Michelin’s Pilot Alpin winter tyres. Moreover, we have a fair bit of photography gear to bring along from Autocar’s road test base in south-west London. In any other Ferrari, we probably wouldn’t bother. It would be easier and, given the more occasional pattern of use, more relevant to wait for a nicer day.
But this is the whole point of the Portofino, so let’s get on with it. First thing to note is that while a Daytona might attract more amorous glances from the kerbside, it wouldn’t see which way the Portofino went. It might hear it, though. This engine now makes 592bhp and 561lb ft, the latter daubed generously across the mid point of its 7500rpm span, and it’s a masterclass in tuning. Ferrari doesn’t mount the IHI turbochargers inside the valley of the cylinders but you’d swear there’s less lag here than with many engines that do. In Sport mode, the response and full bellowing breadth are staggering and the delivery is progressive
enough for one to explore its upper reaches and fully exercise the long throttle travel. In Comfort, the show quietens down to the extent that remaining incognito isn’t as difficult as you might expect.
Ferrari says it applied the damping characteristics from the 488 GTB to the Portofino and, once you really get going, on British roads, there are sporadic traces of the mid-engined car’s brilliance. Through sharp troughs and over unexpected crests in particular, the transition from bump to rebound plays out with the grace of a perfectly executed baton exchange between two sprinters. Body control is uncanny, even at the extremities of the suspension’s travel (which, to be fair, is not exactly generous), and with steering this quick, it helps to dart the Portofino into corners with a ravenous hunger.
It is truly impressive, but harder to appreciate when the bulk of the car’s genetic make-up is supposedly grand tourer. Even on a motorway, rarely is there a moment when you are not consciously repositioning the car between the white lines, so sensitive is the steering only a degree or two off centre. Neither does the car’s rear axle cope so deftly as the front does with the twitchy, quick-fire direction changes that the steering elicits. Upping the ratio of the rack would hide the effect to an extent, but the raised mass of the roof mechanism generates a nervous oscillation that has you questioning the rear contact patches. Nail the Portofino through corners and you’ll force it to adopt a well-balanced squat, Ferrari’s latest e-diff harnessing the power of the engine and providing massive drive, but a car like this needs to resonate better at a gentler tack. ‘Bumpy Road’ mode slackens the suspension and keeps the powertrain, steering weight and stability control on alert, but even this magic button can’t bring the Portofino into that vital easy-going sweet spot. It’s nigh on as taxing to drive on the road
as a 488 Pista and that’s just wrong.
The scale of Ferrari’s legend and the scintillating quality of its more recent mid-engined wares mean that people will accept a less than perfect product to feel part of the story. And that Maranello, in creating the Portofino, has given its ego a lengthy tether will play to that. A riotously loud drop-top so quick and responsive sounds – and is – exciting but the Portofino feels like a supercar imprisoned in the swollen body of a topless grand tourer. Ferrari should remember that not everybody’s commute resembles the Raticosa Pass.
A Daytona wouldn’t see which way a Portofino went. It might hear it, though