Ferrari Announces More Details of the Roma V8 Grand Tourer
Ferrari’s new Roma grand tourer is a pleasant coupe designed for coddling the driver rather than rocketing them around a race circuit.
While Ferrari hasn’t had the best of luck in Formula 1 lately, their road cars have been exemplary. New to Ferrari’s lineup is the Roma. The new grand tourer offers a lot of new tech from Ferrari, so don’t think of it as something put together from the parts bin.
Starting with appearance, the Roma stands out from other recent Ferrari road cars. Gone is the trend towards ever larger front grilles. Instead in its place, is a perforated metal grille, almost egg-crate at first glance. One thing that isn’t present is the large amount of styling tweaks as necessitated by extreme aerodynamics. Instead the form is minimalistic. Very few parts of the car break away from the front fenders to the rear arches. Even out back, the wild tail light design is pared down to simple aesthetically pleasing dashes of red.
The Roma’s bodywork appears more sleek rather than sculpted by computers, but it still benefits from active aero. Trickery under the car and an active rear deck-lid out back mean the Roma has more downforce than the Portofino (by 95kg), yet punches about the same hole in the air.
Under the skin, Ferrari’s new interior is amazing. Piano black buttons are now found on the steering wheel, back-lit from behind. For the first time, Ferrari’s manettino drive select dial is on the steering wheel of a GT car, as well. A wrap around section for both driver and passenger with a large tunnel is now a prominent feature as well. Screens now sit in front of the driver, in the center console and in front of the passenger.
Dif a little deeper and you’ll find a revised turbocharged V8. Compliance with emissions has meant that a gasoline particulate filter has been added in the exhaust system. Ferrari claims no deriving excitement is lost with his new filter. Perhaps it is best to try it out on a grand tourer where muffled tones are preferred. More changes to the engine include a different cam profile, and sensors for the turbocharger, which now spins 5000 rpm faster.
Driveline changes are also present with a fully new 8-speed dual clutch gearbox. With one more speed than other Ferrari gearboxes, this transmission is said to be better for fuel economy, and being a dry-sup low viscosity system, smoother and faster shifts are ready to be deployed.
Although its a GT, the owner will surely want to drive the car in a spirited manner. Ferrari’s Slide Slip Control 6.0 works with the car’s E-diff, F1-Trac and the manettino steering wheel settings. Depending on the settings – Wet, Comfort, Sport, Race, ESC-Off – the car will adjust the characteristics of the car. In Race setting, it will even drag the brakes of individual corners of the car to keep everything from getting too wayward.
There’s still no information yet on the cost of the Roma, so we don’t yet know whether it will slot in below or above the Portofino.
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