The Goodwood Test: Ferrari California T Handling Speciale – Cali With The Heat Turned Up

Heritage
Depending on your frame of reference, the original 1957 250 California Spider is either a classic and highly desirable '50s Ferrari. Or the iconic four-wheeled co-star of a popular 80s teen movie. Either way, when Ferrari's US importer Luigi Chinetti, and his representative on the west coast John Von Neumann, suggested an open top version of the 250 to Ferrari and named it after the sunshine state a classic was born. Just 106 were sold, a far cry from the 10,000 plus of the new-age California in its original normally-aspirated form. Now turbocharged, this Handling Speciale version hopes to win over those who might previously have considered it simply the poser's choice.  

Design
A folding hardtop roadster, the California's most obvious rival is the recently updated Mercedes SL. Like the Mercedes it trades on the ability to work as both a coupe and a convertible, just about disguising the chunky back end required to accommodate the folded roof. Certainly the looks have improved since the normally aspirated original, the new front end introduced on the turbocharged California T helping the proportions roof up or down. To help distinguish your Handling Speciale from regular California Ts, Ferrari has fitted a 'Grigio Ferro Met' grille and rear diffuser to the car and added black tips to the all-new (and louder) exhaust system. There's a little plaque inside too but the real meat of the changes are in the car's chassis hardware and calibration.

Performance
The California has always been a very fast car but this new turbo engine is something of a monster. It's not so much the 560ps/552bhp as the 557lb ft of torque that makes the difference in the T version, up from 372lb ft in the original. The SL63 AMG has even more grunt but, with its traditional transaxle layout, the California has much better weight distribution. This means the Handling Speciale modifications - stiffer springs, revised Magneride adaptive dampers and faster shifts from the dual-clutch gearbox – have a fundamentally strong base to work from. The HS package makes the switch from Comfort to Sport mode more decisive; this combined with natural balance, quick steering and superb damping making it easy to enjoy that huge performance. 

Passion
Ferrari stood to lose most with the industry-wide move to turbocharged engines and has worked very hard to maintain the character of its engines in the forced induction age. The Handling Speciale's heavily modified exhaust system unleashes more noise and the ride is a little more brittle around town but if you want to keep comfort and refinement you can stick with the standard model. For those moments when you're roof down on a deserted mountain road in the Italian hills the Handling Speciale's added poise really lives up to the dream of an open top Ferrari sports car. That it can offer a sense of that with the roof up on a rainy commute into central London is its real masterstroke. Snobs may still dismiss it as a poser's Ferrari. But the Handling Speciale mods offer real substance to back up the style.

Price tag of our car
£160,798 OTR
(£155,230 for standard California T, plus £5,568 Handling Speciale package)