California early impressions

@Lukeylikey

Thanks for the very educational post. In my own case I have driven rear and rear-mid engined cars for about 20 years now. It is remarkable how much the tendency to swap ends has been tamed. Some years ago I had a 328GTB that didn't have a whole lot of power, but it always let you know that the heavy rear end was back there and ready to come out at the slightest provocation. My 458 is not at all like that even though it has much more power. Of course technology plays a strong role in this. But even my 997 GT3 was far more tossable than the older 911s.

And yes, a Ferrari is always about the engine.

 

Agreed where I live in Virginia any Ferrari is exciting for most people and revered at car shows and when you pop the hood wow people run over to see it . Amazing i love my California just as was said it is a great daily driver and has more power and performance then the hp/weight numbers represent mostly because the transmission is so quick. I also own a 246 Dino and that also draws a crowd when I tell them it only has around 200 hp many are surprised but either way most people in my area have never seen one and I am not sure if there is another in the area.
Larry

 

Best post of the new year. Amen brother, took me 20 years and a GTR to learn this lesson.

 

Plus that California was a ringer with much lower gearing than what was used on production cars. Compare the gearing to your owners manual specifications.
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I hope your not suggesting that Chris Harris alleging that Ferrari ensure that the press cars are in some way not representative of what the public gets is actually correct

He can't be correct or Ferrari would still be letting him test their cars

It's not like Ferrari would ban someone if they wrote something negative?

Perhaps Chris Harris and Peter Robinsons public bans from driving Ferraris serves as a warning to other journalists that it is Ferrari that controls the power in the relationship.

Here is a link to what happens at a car launch from an industry insider
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Julian Edgar in Australia was also banned from driving new cars for writing a negative article
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These three examples are public displays showing the workings that basically mean their considered persona non grata in the industry for speaking out about the pressures on journalists to play ball

AutoSpeed Blog » Blog Archive » The Gravy Train? (or, how to win an iPod!)

Then the phone call to fix the behaviour

AutoSpeed Blog » Blog Archive » Dear Hyundai PR Manager?

And the classic article that will go down as a no holds bared accusations that Ferrari press cars are not what the public buys that is a must read for any Ferrari enthusiast (and in particular non owners considering buying a Ferrari based on press reports of Ferraris driven by journalists) is

How Ferrari spins

How Ferrari spins

By Chris Harris, Feb 15, 2011 3:00 PM

I told the blokes here at Jalopnik I was pissed at Ferrari and wanted to tell a few people. They said I could do it here. Stay with me, this might take a while.

I think it started in 2007 when I heard that Ferrari wanted to know which test track we were going to use for Autocar's 599 GTB road test, but in reality the rot had set in many years earlier. Why would it want to know that? "Because," said the man from the Autocar office, "The factory now has to send a test team to the circuit we chose so that they can optimize the car to get the best performance from it." They duly went to the track, tested for a day, crashed the car, went back to the factory to mend the car, returned, tested and then invited us to drive this "standard" 599. They must have been having a laugh.

Sad to say it, but the ecstasy of driving a new Ferrari is now almost always eradicated by the pain of dealing with the organization. Why am I bothering to tell you this? Because I'm pissed with the whole thing now. It's gotten out of control; to the point that it will soon be pointless believing anything you read about its cars through the usual channels, because the only way you get access is playing by its rules.




Like anyone with half a brain, I've been willing to cut Ferrari some slack because it is, well, Ferrari –- the most famous fast car brand of all and the maker of cars that everyone wants to know about. Bang out a video of yourself drifting a new Jag XKR on YouTube and 17 people watch it; do the same in a 430 Scuderia and the audience is 500,000 strong. As a journalist, those numbers make you willing to accommodate truck-loads of bull****, but I've had enough now. I couldn't care if I never drive a new Ferrari again, if it means I never have to deal with the insane communication machine and continue lying about the lengths to which Ferrari will bend any rule to get what it wants. Which is just as well, because I don't think I'm going to be invited back to Maranello any time soon. Shame, the food's bloody marvelous.

How bad has it been? I honestly don't know where to start. Perhaps the 360 Modena press car that was two seconds faster to 100mph than the customer car we also tested. You allow some leeway for "factory fresh" machines, but this thing was ludicrously quick and sounded more like Schumacher's weekend wheels than a street car. Ferrari will never admit that its press cars are tuned, but has the gall to turn up at any of the big European magazines' end-of-year-shindig-tests with two cars. One for straight line work, the other for handling exercises. Because that's what happens when you buy a 458: they deliver two for just those eventualities. The whole thing stinks. In any other industry it wouldn't be allowed to happen. It's dishonest, but all the mags take it between the cheeks because they're too scared of not being invited to drive the next new Ferrari.

Remember the awesome 430 Scuderia? What a car that was, and still is. One English magazine went along with all the cheating-bull**** because the cars did seem to be representative of what a customer might get to drive, but then during the dyno session, the "standard" tires stuck themselves to the rollers.

And this is the nub: how ****ing paranoid do you have to be to put even stickier rubber on a Scuderia? It's like John Holmes having an extra two inches grafted onto his dick. I mean it's not as if, according to your own communication, you're not a clear market leader and maker of the best sports cars in the world now, is it?

What Ferrari plainly cannot see is that its strategy to win every test at any cost is completely counter-productive. First, it completely undermines the amazing work of its own engineers. What does it say about a 458 if the only way its maker is willing to loan it to a magazine is if a laptop can be plugged in after every journey and a dedicated team needs to spend several days at the chosen test track to set-up the car? It says they're completely nuts –- behavior that looks even worse when rival brands just hand over their car with nothing more than a polite suggestion that you should avoid crashing it too heavily, and then return a week later.

Point two: the internet is good for three things: free porn, Jalopnik and spreading information. Fifteen years ago, if your 355 wasn't as fast as the maker claimed you could give the supplying dealer a headache, whine at the local owners club and not much besides. Nowadays you spray your message around the globe and every bugger knows about it in minutes. So, when we used an owner's 430 Scud because Ferrari wouldn't lend us the test car, it was obliterated in a straight line by a GT2 and a Lambo LP 560-4, despite all the "official" road test figures suggesting it was faster than Halley's Comet. The forums went nuts and some Scud owners rightly felt they hadn't been delivered the car they'd read about in all the buff books. Talk about karma slapping you in the face.

It's the level of control that's so profoundly irritating and I think damaging to the brand. Once you know that it takes a full support crew and two 458s to supply those amazing stats, it then takes the shine off the car. The simple message from Ferrari is that unless you play exactly by the laws they lay down, you're off the list.

What are those laws? Apart from the laughable track test stuff, as a journalist you are expressly forbidden from driving any current Ferrari road car without permission from the factory. So if I want to drive my mate's 458 tomorrow, I have to ask the factory. Will it allow me to drive the car? No: because it is of "unknown provenance," i.e. not tuned. I'm almost tempted to buy a 458, just for the joy of phoning Maranello every morning and asking if its OK if I take my kid to school.

Where I've personally run into trouble is by using owners' cars for comparison tests. Ferrari absolutely hates this; even if you say unremittingly nice things about its cars, it goes ape ****. But you want to see a 458 against a GT3 RS so I'm going to deliver that story and that video. Likewise the 599 GTO and the GT2 RS. Ferrari honestly believes it can control every aspect of the media — it has actively intervened several times when I've asked to borrow owners' cars.

The control freakery is getting worse: for the FF launch in March journalists have to say which outlets they are writing it for and those have to be approved by Maranello. Honestly, we're perilously close to having the words and verdicts vetted by the Ferrari press office before they're released, which of course has always been the way in some markets.




Should I give a **** about this stuff? Probably not. It's not like it's a life-and-death situation; supercars are pretty unserious tackle. But the best thing about car nuts is that they let you drive their cars, and Ferrari has absolutely no chance stopping people like me driving what they want to drive. Of course their attempts to stop me makes it an even better sport and merely hardens my resolve, but the sad thing is its cars are so good it doesn't need all this ****e. I'll repeat that for the benefit of any vestige of a chance I might have of ever driving a Ferrari press car ever again (which is virtually none). "Its cars are so good it doesn't need this ****e."

None of this will make any difference to Ferrari. I'm just an irrelevant Limey who doesn't really matter. But I've had enough of concealing what goes on, to the point that I no longer want to be a Ferrari owner, a de-facto member of its bull****-control-edifice. I sold my 575 before Christmas. As pathetic protests go, you have to agree it's high quality.

Jesus, this is now sounding like a properly depressing rant. I'll leave it there. Just remember all this stuff then next time you read a magazine group test with a prancing stallion in it.

Chris Harris is a UK-based freelance car writer who once bought a 1995 512 TR

 

I am willing to give Ferrari the benefit of the doubt on the California, since it was a pre-production model and gearing may not have been finalized. Doubt if many production Californias could accelerate that quickly, though. Geared even more like a drag racer than the production car.

All the rest of the complaints seem to be more belly-aching than anything else, though, especially if they were testing preproduction cars. Not too many facts mixed in with the grumping. In the case above, they actually gave R&T the lower gearing ratios, which gives them the benefit of the doubt. Otherwise, they would just have given R&T the production gearing. R&T likely would not have noticed since the DCT shifts so quickly.

 

I made the mistake of posting on the thread "Ferrari styling today" noting my thoughts that the California is a true Ferrari in the sense that it is bar none, the best convertible on the road. Extending on the belief that Ferrari represents the best in automotive tech and aesthetics, it thus should be appreciated as a member of the stable instead of its forlorn step-child. I wanted to convey that no other car, past or present, looks as great top up or top down (referred back to the AC Shelby, which actually had a soft top- take a look sometime if you want to be shocked) hoping that a little change in perspective might lessen the ardor of some who seem to take pleasure in their unfettered critique.

Well, to my chagrin, but not surprise, my plea for sanity and unity of Ferrari owners was met with immediate, unilateral "girly car" comments and other pejoratives. Being a slow learner, even I now have come to realize that some folks, no matter what, will take time from their busy day to convey their unbridled disdain for something they don't like. Thank god I didn't post a photo of my kid or wife for them to comment on...

I am reminded of two comments about art and aesthetics. When Claude Monet first displayed his art, Paris' most noted critic wrote that "a preliminary drawing for a wallpaper pattern is more finished than this seascape", and that Picasso, when asked about criticism of his work, said "art is not the application of a canon of beauty but what the instinct and the brain can conceive beyond any canon. When we love a woman, we don't start measuring her limbs."

Thinking of these perspectives... art is meant to engage, and to create an emotional connection between the work of art (or performance) and the person experiencing it. The California certainly emotionally engages the emotions (and obsessions?) of those who dislike it, and also creates a similar engagement for those of us who find its lines appealing and pleasurable. This it qualifies not only as an aesthetic accomplishment, but one that merges art's form with Ferrari's function. The fact that it is eminently drivable (a negative to some?) and allows me to enjoy the full sensation of an open coupe experience is just a bonus.

Best Regards, Bob H

 

Inner peace is helped when you disregard everyone's opinion (other than yours) as good or bad, as irrelevant.

All that need matter is that you like the styling.

It's great that people express an opinion on the california styling, but their opinion is irrelevant to you

Your analogy with art implies that what are now considered by critics as "masters" were not appreciated at the time, and later gained acceptance

I suggest that a critics opinion is largely irrelevant, they are not the ones buying the art or the California

I had a friend over to dinner last night that brought up the costs of ownership of my car (with particular regard to depreciation costs), and I simply said that for the enjoyment it brought me I am really happy with my purchase decision

I'm not sure he really understood where I was coming from

I lived in Socal for three years, and I'm about to make some generalisations, I found many people care more of what other people think of their decisions, and they seek acceptance from their friends, family and peers more than others outside Socal

I don't care if my neighbour or coworker likes my car or my art collection

If you worry that the opinions of anonymous people whom you have never met on an Internet web site are relevant, it might be time to take a step back and put those opinions into perspective, but that's just my opinion

 

A lot of good objective and subjective info in this thread..

In the end I am very happy with my "new" 2010 Cali. I traded in a '07 430 coupe and '04 996tt cab to get into it. (I kept my 993tt)

The only thing I regret is that unlike the 430, I have already been able to "floor" the Cali for a few seconds without hearing or experiencing a thunder of maniacal horses. I could not floor the 430, when I tried either the rear end lost grip or I ran out of road... That car was a real animal

But I did not get into the Cali for speed I got into for the rear seats so that I can use it more often being that my 2 young kids are with me a lot. I was hardly able to drive the 430 for this reason. Maybe when the kids are older I'll go back to a two seater. Also the Cali is newer for me and more advanced so I like that. It looks great, not a "wild" looking as the 430 or it's predecessors and successors but still sharp, almost like the 599 and it does handle tight enough esp with the magnetic shocks, the HGTE would be even better. Plus since I gave up my tt cab I still have a convertible. Again, in the end it has the Ferrari presence and unique sound, worth every penny... imo.

A

 

anyone who doubts the Ferrari-ness of the California needs to go to Maranello. The California is made on the same line, with the same hands (and machines) as the 458. The engine is forged in the same foundry. No one in Italy considers the California anything other than a 'real Ferrari'.

 

A lot of the hand-wringing and sharp criticisms about the Cali and the newer models can be explained more by the men rather than the machines.

Fixed ideas and for lack of a better word intolerance of anything that deviates from these old ideas, might explain much more than the design and technology of the cars.

Just look at the fact that many owners of "real" Ferraris are afraid to drive their F-cars out of a fear of the elements, ie rain, or even worse, the accumulation of miles.

But of course, they love to talk about them and have their pictures taken standing next to the cold vehicle at rest.

And then they will tell you how shrewd they were at choosing the options for a car that is never driven.

And then you will hear how they save on expensive service by avoiding to put miles on the car.

"I only have 4,000 miles on her. I won't ever have to do the 15,000 mile service!"


Worse still is that they erroneously believe that their F car is going to appreciate in value by this non-use.

But time has a way of moving life forward.

 

It's been about a year that I've had my car now. The time went fast. I put about 7k miles on mine in that period, but would gladly have put more had I had the opportunity. I bought my car to drive it, not let it sit in the garage. But there are times or places when it's just not smart to drive a Ferrari, and because of what I do, I'm away from home a fair amount. So the car does sit despite my best intentions to drive it. In part what motivated me to get the car in the first place was the realization that time is finite (doh!) after a dear friend passed way too early. So I decided to get a Ferrari I could drive most of the time.

I think a higher percentage of California owners buy them to drive on a daily or near daily basis. The California is the perfect car for the enthusiast who wants to do that rather than have a car that mostly sits, but it's gorgeous so fills that role well, too. It doesn't get as much attention as the mid-engine cars, which is exactly why I got it. I chose to get it in Silverstone for the same reason - less attention, although no Ferrari can ever be as anonymous as the German sedans and sports cars frequently found on the roads where I live and work.

Do I care that some Ferrari enthusiasts look down on my "entry-level" Ferrari, or that they perceive it as a "chick car"? Nope. Truth is, it's way faster than nearly anything other than its contemporary siblings, and given my familiarity with its characteristics that comes with driving it "a lot" (compared to many owners of other Ferrari models), I can safely push it way faster than those who own much more exotic looking or faster cars (on the appropriate back road or track, that is). And I can enjoy my car with the top down when it's not raining, or with the top up whenever I feel the need for a bit less fresh air.

That said, do I sometimes wish my car had 600-700 bhp so that it was perceived more like a convertible version of an F12? Yeah. Who wouldn't? So how about a convertible F12? Or, put a V-12 in it and revive the Daytona Spider name!? OK, enough of this. Time to hit the road...

 

ya know...that whole 'chicks car' thing is sort-a funny. Think about it. Women like the California. As a red blooded male I fail to see how that is a bad thing.

My wife disliked all my former Italian cars...loves the California.

If my focus was on what other people (men) thought and said about the car I drove what exactly does that say about me?... more specifically, what would that say about my 'preferences'?

Not trying to pick fights...just pointing out a rather odd (and maybe funny) flaw of thinking.

 

Those were my thoughts almost exactly re the whole girl car thing. When I was shopping, I had narrowed it down to an Aston or Ferrari; the overwhelming sentiment amongst women was that the AM was the car they would prefer (beauty, lines, etc.). Showing them the California, they generally changed their minds.

Since I'm more into driving cars than looking at them, the California won easily in the end. All said, a good thing, and women liking it is (another) bonus. Don't care a lot what some guy might think (who in most circs knows a lot less about cars, Ferrari or otherwise).

Bob H

 

It's funny. My boy's wife likes my Cali so much more than his cs. She complains about the harsh ride. The vast majority can't tell the difference between a Cali and a 458 spider. I bought my Cali to drive it, naysayers be damned.

 

The "purist" is just sometimes foolish. I love the threads where the OP states the only real Ferrari is a manual 6. Ok, sure The other thing that gets me going is when they state the Cali is the "entry level" Ferrari. No, a BMW 1 series is an entry level BMW, the Cali is designed for a different market segment and is no where priced as entry level.

 

the entry level Ferrari is a used Ferrari according to Ferrari.

 

$250k is hardly entry IMO. Human nature just like when I had a 911 and observed other owners looking down on the cayman. I drove a cayman s and the handling was great with more of a gokart feel. Haters gonna hate.

 

I am with you on those thoughts Bob, i chose my Cali over Bentley GT soft top, AM Vanquish S because it has much more elegant lines and real flair. It is quite immaterial to me if some may see it feminine, i personally have never seen a lady driving Cali's in the UK just guys i have seen a lady driving a black 458 though, what does that say- personal taste i guess

 

I find it interesting that so many people here as so concerned about what OTHER people think of their cars

I'd even go so far as to say it doesn't matter what your wife/girlfriend thinks of the car, it's your car and in the vast majority of cases it's your earnings that made it possible to drive it

I almost always buy cars lots of other people don't like

I was talking to someone about to buy a new car and as I suggested a few European cars to consider he said

"When I go to the shops when I have a (insert local sporty domestic car with body kit, stripes and big wheels) all the teenagers come up to me and say "what a great car" but when I had a European car no one came up to me and told me they liked my car

I didn't have the heart to tell him how crazy that was to me

I guess a lot of Ferraris get bought for reasons that are strange to me, I'm aware that it makes people assume you are "rich" but wanting unconditional acceptance from strangers for buying a car seems like it's not the right reason to purchase the car to me

 

Forgive my ignorance, but what's magnaride option and is it available on 2009 cars?