SF90 Spider v SF90 AF Coupe

There are very few threads that accurately compare the standard and AF car. Since we have recently taken delivery of our ‘standard’ spider and have had our AF coupe for two years, I thought I would offer my findings to those interested. From someone who has a foot in both camps so-to-speak.

Firstly, to give a clearer picture, our plan is to keep the spider long term so we did TM on it. We will sell the coupe in favour of an XX whenever that arrives - currently we are deposit paid but no specs submitted. The TM car was eye-wateringly expensive. We are used to TM - this was our fourth plus we also have a TM PS on order - but this seems to be by far the most expensive. As with everything else these days, it seems TM pricing has increased because it didn’t feel like we did anything more unusual than the previous cars. TM remains a very special experience though and for cars that you plan to keep, it really is a very special thing to do. We’re delighted with the result of the exterior. The interior is bold, in person it looks good. My family really like it but I think I prefer what we did on the previous three cars more than this one. Once inside though, it suits the boisterous personality of the car and we purposely went for a sporty, strong spec because we went for a subtler colour palette with our immediately previous car, the 812C (despite the final version still being a pretty ambitious spec and build). It may well grow further on me and it doesn’t spoil my overall appreciation of the car - in real life, it’s beautiful. I’ve enclosed some pics taken at handover, including our enthusiastic grandson who, as you can see, has begun his journey into the Ferrari way already. No education needed, he loved cars from the moment he could speak and knows a Ferrari from a Porsche etc, exclaiming “rari” whenever he sees one. Pretty cute!

What I have read so far is that there are AF car fans and those who argue that whether the AF car is better or not is moot because they can’t live without either/or the bumpy road mode and the lifter. To start with the AF car, the new multimatic suspension is brilliant. It feels very firm but doesn’t crash, provides excellent body control and has what I can only describe as a very sporting/sophisticated feeling to the way it moves. For me, its drawbacks are that on the many broken British B-roads it can feel too harsh and discourages quick progress because threading the car down a narrow or broken road with so much aggressive movement just diminishes the fun. Plus there has been a roadtrip occasion I have mentioned a few times here that was problematic with no lift. Some ferries would be impossible to think about too, for example the Isle of Man ferry. All other occasions have been ok, although I have scraped on some speed bumps but still managed to get over. I know Novitec offer an aftermarket lifter but don’t fancy that. For the spider, I also didn’t want the kicked-up spoiler so for all those reasons we ordered the normal car. I had a thought about rigidity too with the top being cut off. Our GTS is excellent in this regard, our Pista not terrible but not as good as the GTS. The suspension was the thing I was most interested in on my first drive of our new car. Mostly because I figure it is the key difference. The aerodynamic differences are negligible and certainly not material on the road.

I love the magnetorheological suspension on Ferraris. In both the Speciale and the Pista it gives you great feedback from the road and makes for a very pleasant sensation in transmitting the weight movement the car is experiencing to your body. In other words, it feels great. I much prefer it to the McLaren system which is highly technical but a bit less organic to me. I haven’t fully pushed the spider yet but my initial impression is that the suspension feels less sophisticated (and by that I mean not quite as good) as the AF car’s multimatic system when putting some energy through the chassis. Is there a ‘but’ coming….yes there is. As fully expected the plush ride the car can give does resolve the broken road situation. For the type of roads I spend most time driving a Ferrari on, the standard system is better most of the time. It still has that Ferrari feel, though the extra weight means it feels more 812 than 488 Pista in its responses. I love the 812 and in no way suggest it’s anything less than a brilliant supercar. It’s not a GT to me, it’s far sharper than that. But it’s also not a Pista. The standard SF90 feels somewhere in the middle. It’s not as sharp as the AF car on the right road (and it must also be the same on track where I have driven the AF car but not the standard). The best way to describe it is 90% as good (and there can be a lot in the extra 10%) but in terms of managing difficult roads, it’s at least twice as good - so 200%. As a more general car it seems a reasonable trade off, always assuming you are happy driving the less ultimately capable car. And those are now facts for me and the type of driving I do. Did I get it the right way around - AF coupe and normal spider? Absolutely yes. I wouldn’t go back and change our spider spec to AF, even with the thought of adding a novitec lifter. Yes, it isn’t quite the sharp tool the AF car is but we’re talking degrees here. And being a spider, I won’t take it to the track unless I don’t have anything else more suitable. The lack of multimatic suspension doesn’t diminish what the standard SF90 is; a fantastic roadtrip car, brilliantly fast, exciting and able to cope well with whatever you encounter, while maximising the fun you can have over a very broad cross-section of roads without being quite the ‘weapon’ the AF car is when on the right road. Although this would not be my first choice on track, mostly because the AF car would be a bit better and this is a spider, curiously the car comes with Cup 2 tyres. I had assumed that it would come with a less track-oriented tyre than that and would have probably chosen a lesser option if I had known and one had been offered. Given it’s a 1,000 hp car, I guess it’s still the right choice. In warm climes and on twisty roads, the stickiness of a hot Cup 2 might still be just the thing to keep a heavy-ish car in good order.

As a roadtrip car, what about the luggage space? I had wondered that. We have used the coupe for a 5-day trip with luggage without issue. But the rear shelf is absent on the spider. Having seen the interior, I know we can do the same again - there is a way. The front will take a large suit carrier, folded thin suit carriers will go behind both seats and it’s not uncomfortable for the passenger to have a small bag under their legs in the passenger footwell….said the driver! We’re planning to go to the alps for a week in October. We’ll need to be clever but we’ll do it. And hopefully not look like two people who have given-up-on-life-but-still-drive-a-Ferrari by the end of it!

The pace of the car is as it ever was and our spider must be at least 100kg heavier than our coupe. Can you notice that? No. The other thing you don’t really notice is scuttle shake. The car’s stiffness is much more like the GTS and less like the Pista. That’s a good thing and probably means that anyone who orders the AF spider, assuming you enjoy its suspension on the roads you drive, probably owns a super supercar. Lift then being the only consideration.

There are a couple of updates to the user interface i noticed too. On the older coupe, I have struggled to get on with the haptic switches, frequently pressing either the cruise control or the ‘view max’ button which changes the display format. It’s really frustrating and something you end up getting used to rather than solving. The new car has a neat solution to that. It turns that whole bar of haptic switches on the steering wheel’s crossbar off until you press the cross button, you then press the switch you need and after a few seconds it all goes to sleep again. Maybe still not better than a simple switch but manageable. And with all the functions on the car, maybe switches would be a bit naff too. Where would you find them all? I have a feeling that there are some other changed things to discover too although haven’t had enough time with the car to finally conclude that.

With three SF90’s either owned or on order, I think it can be safely concluded I love the SF90, in whatever format (so far). When you look back in history, some of the best cars to own both dynamically and financially have been undersold when new because they were misunderstood. 964 RS and McLaren F1 to name two. Could we be seeing another future example of that breed? When cars have developed into whatever they are about to become, I think the SF90 could stand out as a watershed car, not just for Ferrari but for the supercar genre. A car that brilliantly marries old and new technology into a usable, super-quick, dramatic and generally good-looking package. By then its performance will not be so remarkable but it will have no peers in making the mix of petrol and electricity so seamless and ‘performance-forward’. I think the market will learn all about the SF90 in the years to come and given the context we will all find ourselves in, it could become properly appreciated for what many owners have come to love about the car. And I agree with another poster that.a £350k SF90 is a very tempting prospect indeed. In whichever guise you choose.
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Difficult question because they all have merits. If I could only have one Ferrari and I chose an SF90 it might be an AF spider with Novitec lift. That should cover track and road decently well. But if I was able to add a Porsche GT3 or RS I would then forego the AF pack on the SF90.

 

I guess the justification for my 90/10 is that the standard car still feels like an awesome machine with excellent handling responses and a wide band of ability. The extra ‘special sauce’ the AF car has is difficult to describe to someone who has not experienced the difference in detail. I’m also unsure how much quicker it actually is. Instead it’s about feel and confidence, something the standard car doesn’t lack either. Crispness, the word you used, is a really good one. It’s like the added stiffness you have to tolerate gives back more in terms of connection to the road when the road surface is decent. Maybe another way of saying it is that both suspensions are doing a similar thing - absorbing imperfections but then returning to a state of stability - but the AF is doing it milliseconds quicker without being unnecessarily harsh (different to stiff). The trade-off is that the standard car’s system allows for a more absorbent setting that accommodates larger imperfections better. When the surface is broken enough that the stiffer suspension causes the tyre to momentarily lose contact or even just unweights it significantly, you are sacrificing the thing that you value - connection to the road. It’s why I’m guessing an AF car will be at its best versus the standard car on track. On roads, the conclusion of the comparison is “it depends”. If you travel on very varied roads, the standard car makes a strong case for itself. If you more rarely encounter difficult roads the AF car is compelling.

As a side note, I don’t think the price difference is much of an issue because most people add all the carbon that comes with the AF pack anyway - and why not? The SF90 is a seriously expensive car so it makes little point to order a car in a spec you don’t want, and most people want the carbon. The pack makes the carbon cheaper on a piece by piece basis and so you effectively get the suspension virtually free.

 

We’ll have a go…. Challenge accepted!

 

Where C is concerned, I don’t think S is up for minimising her luggage!

 

Oh no! I’m a Manchester United fan! The shame

 

Haven’t had enough drive time to fully reach a conclusion but I think there is a difference. The standard car is a little quieter more of the time. Ours is still running in and I suspect it will be a similar sound under full load but in general driving up to around 5k revs it feels a little quieter to me. Kind of a nice turbo sound though. We’re not talking V12 wonder here but I quite like the more muted sound of the Ferrari turbos. Especially if you’re driving quickly, I feel like it attracts less attention while still interacting with your inputs and encouraging you to drive with some pace.

 

Had a couple more chances to drive our SF90 Spider without AF. In short, I needn’t have worried. The AF coupe has been so good to drive that I had been wondering whether it was a mistake to forego it on our spider build, which is a TM car to keep. You can tell quite a difference in the two suspension systems. I think on the limit on a track the AF car would hold a small advantage and for those who live in an area with very good roads and don’t need a lift (or don’t want to do an aftermarket lift) the AF might still be best. Or, for the person that wants the absolute last word in performance and doesn’t care about the ability to drive over poor quality roads (or the state of their carbon splitter) it may still be the one.

For me, the spider has been an absolute revelation - what a lovely lovely car to own and drive. Firstly, part of the reason I didn’t order an AF spider is because of the potential lack of rigidity with the multimatic suspension exposing the weaknesses of an open-roof layout. No need to have worried. I’ve said before that our Pista does lose some rigidity in being a spider whereas the 812 GTS was a real surprise in that it feels much more rigid. Perhaps that has to do with the big transmission tunnel running through the cabin with the Pista’s powertrain being all rearward, leaving a flat floor that is less rigid without its roof. I couldn’t see much logic behind the SF90 feeling more like the GTS so I assumed it wouldn’t. But it does. You can still detect some flex but minimal and not enough to disturb any kind of driving, even on rougher roads. It makes an excellent convertible from the perspective of lack of flex and is really quite rigid and secure-feeling.

The suspension. This was the big question (because I’ve decided I prefer the appearance of the spider without the carbon spoiler at the back). I’ve heard it feels quite plush and GT-like. Not in ours. Ours feels more stiffly sprung than I expected from previous comments. I’ve always liked the Magnetorheological suspension. It has come to feel very Ferrari to me. So much so that when going back through the catalogue and buying a classic, an F512M, this car felt quite very unFerrari-like to me. A stupid statement of course, but most of our first Ferraris had the adjustable magnetic suspension now so familiar to all of us. The multimatic suspension has quite a different feeling. It retains excellent body control and is still live-able. Think of it as a GT3 RS-style suspension but retaining a smidge more pliancy than the 3 RS over varying surfaces. Whereas the SF90 standard suspension is closer to the Pista than the GT3 RS. In my book, and for fast road driving, this is a good thing. In fact, it is probably a bit stiffer than Pista in the bumpy road setting. So if the SF90 is to be described as a GT because of its suspension, the Pista more so. No, I don’t think the Pista is a GT either.

Overall, the SF90 works really well as a spider. The more modern windscreen shape (compared with 458/488/F8 chassis) is a nice frame to sit behind and the SF90 is a great place to be with the roof down. The sound is really good, turbo-good rather than n/a-good but still good. And the whole car just works. The way we coloured our car makes me feel its smaller and when driving it I feel it is not really bigger than a Pista, but it is more modern, much faster - in fact relentless pace - and as wieldy and also comfortable as the Pista. If I could only have one Ferrari to do a world of duties, this would be it. No question. It is an absolutely sublime car. I’ve loved the SF90 from the beginning and this non-AF car hasn’t seen my enjoyment and appreciation, in fact affection, for the SF90 diminish at all.

 

Seems a similar amount of room with the exception of losing the rear trough that is on the coupe, behind the seats. Apart from that it feels similar. We have just sold our coupe, as I mentioned in another thread. Sad to see it go but our XX spider that arrives in its place will hopefully be fun!