The Ferrari Roma is no more. What one might consider a midcycle refresh for most car brands instead results in a new model and a new name for Ferrari.
Such a move by Modena is not without precedent. The quite cool (V-12, two transmissions, AWD, shooting brake) Ferrari FF became the Lusso after five years. Likewise, the 488 morphed into the nearly mechanically identical F8 after just four years. With that in mind, meet the Amalfi, the newest Ferrari and successor to the wonderful (though perhaps misunderstood) Roma.
Why Overhaul the Roma?
To understand the Amalfi, you must first understand what Ferrari wanted to accomplish with the Roma. When it arrived in 2020, the Roma debuted with the concept of la nuovo dolce vita, or “the new sweet life,” a reference to the fecund, sexy period Rome and Italy experienced from the late 1950s through the 1960s.
Film, the arts, architecture, sports cars, and Italian culture in general all blossomed during this era. The Roma was intended to be a throwback to that style, that way of life, as well as a new entry point into the brand for people who were perhaps put off by the seriousness of razor-styled mid-engine coupes like the 488/F8 or snarling, fantastically expensive monsters like the F12 and 812 Superfast. Put another way, Ferrari wanted into the Porsche 911 Turbo/Aston Martin Vantage grand touring market.
We loved the Roma, declaring it “stunning” and “fantastically fun to drive.” However, the car was not without detractors. Many folks hated the perforated shark nose grille, and everybody rightly despised the heavy use of haptic switches instead of actual buttons, especially the extra fussy mirror controls.
The Amalfi’s job is to correct those mistakes while also ushering in new technologies underneath the revised metal, such as brake-by-wire and the engine control computer from the epic 296.
Here’s What the Amalfi Changes
Gone is the aforementioned grille, and the front end now features what’s quickly becoming a Ferrari family design trait: a black strip across the nose. While not as thick as the one found on the 12 Cilindri or as Dread Pirate Roberts as the mask on the F80’s face, the Amalfi’s thin black bar runs across its prow from headlight to headlight. We think it looks good, and it works with smaller headlights to simplify the entire front end. Chief design officer Flavio Manzoni says his team wanted to de-anthropomorphize the face, calling the result “a groove with lamps.”
This stylistic theme is repeated out back with the taillights. The Amalfi’s rear refresh works even better than the front’s, with the tail resembling a mashup of a Porsche 928, a TVR T350, and a spaceship.
Back to the front, the lower portion is simple black grating, though as with the Roma, Ferrari’s Centro Stile still struggles to properly integrate radar and parking sensors. They did a better job with the Amalfi’s sensors than the Roma’s, but only just.
On the inside, the headline is that Ferrari saw the error of its ways and replaced the haptic steering wheel controls with actual buttons, including the big red start button. Luddites rejoice. That said, the truly awful mirror controls remain—and are about half the size of an Apple Watch screen—but you can’t win them all.
The cabin itself has been reworked to be more cosseting and spacious with the showpiece being a centrally mounted piece of milled and anodized aluminum that elegantly separates the driver from the passenger. The central touchscreen has rotated from portrait to landscape, and as a result looks much more integrated.
