Ferrari Roma 2026 review: Spider

This Roma Spider might just be the loudest Ferrari I've ever driven. But I don't mean that in terms of a sonic-boom exhaust or the big-cat roar of a hard-charging engine – though happily the drop-top Roma serves up plenty of both.

I mean that it’s the first Ferrari I’ve driven that has fallen victim to the binging and bonging nightmare that is the modern active safety suite.

A Ferrari — this rolling testament to pure and unbridled performance — chirping me for being a couple of kilometres over what it thinks is the speed limit seems wrong on an elemental level, and serves as a pretty constant reminder that the safety police spare no-one, not even the mega-rich.

And, most heartbreakingly of all, the Roma hasn't been crash tested by ANCAP or Euro NCAP, and it probably never will be, so the Italians could have simply said a big no to the safety boffins instead.

Anyway, it can be switched off – apparently via a little button on the steering wheel that remembers your preferred settings, so it's only one touch to get back to normal – and it's worth remembering that the Roma, and its drop-dead gorgeous drop-top sibling, is the most liveable of the Ferrari line-up, designed to be a comfortable daily driver as well as an alpine-pass carver, and so the active safety kit is at least understandable.

Let's start with the first half of this Jekyll-Hyde equation, shall we? Because there are times, and lots of them, when the Roma Spider convinces you it is little more than a mild-mannered commuter.

Be gentle with the inputs, and engage the most comfortable settings, and the Roma shifts up gears quickly and quietly, glides over bumps, steers with the gentlest of touches, and emits little more than a Honda Civic's purr from its four tomato-can-sized exhaust tips.

This is a $520,300 Ferrari you could very much live with everyday. And I don't mean that in the masochistic way many of us could live with the hardest, angriest supercar every day. I mean that it is properly comfortable, easy to drive, smooth and all-around easy.

But.. engage manual mode, drop the roof (which takes 13.5secs, and can be done at speeds of up to 60km/h) flick your steering-wheel mounted manettino switch (Ferrari's much-loved Drive Mode selector, which in this case cycles through Wet, Comfort, Sport and Race before finishing with for-people-braver-than-me ESC Off) and the mood changes entirely, like Clark Kent suddenly bursting out of the phone booth.

Doing the heavy lifting here is a 3.9-litre twin-turbocharged V8 engine, producing a potent 456kW and 760Nm, and with an eight-speed automatic with the ability to have its neck rung all the way to 7500rpm.

A flat-footed sprint to 100km/h takes 3.4 seconds, and –undertaken in manual mode, allowing you told hold a gear for as long as you damn please – each upward shift is accompanied by a delightfully angry thump as each new gear is grabbed. And the puff isn't running out anywhere near 100km/h, either. Without going into too many incriminating details, the Spider showed no sign of giving up once triple digits were hit, and the spec sheet tells me 200km/h will arrive in 9.7 seconds, and you'll be leaving 300km/h in your rear view not long after.

I'm usually not a huge fan of convertibles, partly because I live in Sydney where the sun takes no prisoners – not helped by the fact I'm so pale and white I should come with a thread count. But also because adding weight to a sports car is rarely a good idea.

But I'm willing to make an exception in this case, because the exhaust sounds so much better, so clearer with the roof stowed. And besides, it apparently weighs just 84kg more than its hardtop sibling, this Spider, but you'd need a microscope, protractor and – one assumes – a bunsen burner to identify where that weight had gone when you're on the road, given the Spider feels plenty taught and athletic on the twistier stuff, likely owing to the slightly stiffer chassis.

I can also report that, while the Spider doesn't always feel special from behind the wheel (again, no bad thing in Sydney traffic), it always feels very special in the cabin.

Our test car was lavished in tan leather and felt, while the manettino-equipped wheel, complete with a digital engine-start button, a bright yellow Ferrari logo and the prerequisite flappy paddles, feels lovely in the hands. I also adore the gated-manual-style gear selector in the centre console.

The tech proved gremlin-free, too, with Apple CarPlay running through the 8.4-inch central screen, and the digital dash serving up all the driving information. The controls on then steering wheel are fiddly though, and some of the UX is weird. Even the Ferrari man himself couldn't figure out how to give my fuel-use data.

It also might be the loosest definition of a backseat I've ever seen. I have a nine-month-old son, and maybe – just maybe – his legs are short enough to fit comfortably in the Roma Spider's backseat.

Still, calm and cosseting when you need it to be, and powerful and precise when you want it to be, the Roma Spider really does feel like an everyday Ferrari.