Overview
Behind the Portofino’s sinister grin lies a 591-hp twin-turbo 3.9-liter V-8 that gives this prancing horse its legs. Other performance gear includes an electronic limited-slip differential and an adaptive suspension. The Portofino offers luxuries such as a retractable hardtop and a 10.2-inch infotainment display; rear seats are standard, but aren’t humane places to park passengers. Although the Portofino is technically Ferrari’s entry-level model, expect a price tag of at least $200,000.
Before 2008, no roadgoing Ferrari had ever featured an eight-cylinder engine ahead of the driver, a dual-clutch automatic transaxle at the rear, direct fuel injection, or a power-folding hardtop. All of those brand firsts showed up at once on the sweet-driving California wrapped, sadly, in suboptimal styling.
Customers looked past the California’s bulbous trunk to appreciate the considerable junk within: The all-season folding hardtop, which stowed atop the spacious cargo hold, and that sharp-shifting rear transaxle. The Golden State warrior became the best-selling prancing horse ever, bringing in a high percentage of new customers at its $200,000 opening price. Ferrari engineers wisely copied their notes to its clean-sheet replacement, the Portofino, while the stylists carefully avoided creating a second Sir Mix-a-Lot music-video extra. (The car is named for a ritzy Italian village on the Mediterranean, but the late Brock Yates would no doubt be honored to see the name of the finishing location for the Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash applied to a Ferrari. You may recall that he won that race with Dan Gurney in, yes, a Ferrari.)
Despite being only 0.1 inch lower, 1.1 inches wider, and 0.7 inch longer, the Portofino’s look is light-years beyond the California’s tall, narrow, and somewhat doughy appearance. A pair of fairings trail off of each rear-seat headrest into the trunklid to break up the panel’s visual heft, and when the roof is raised, those spears gracefully carry the greenhouse’s profile all the way to the Portofino’s tail. The grille’s upturned edges form a confident smirk suggesting that if the California was the Ferrari you might text “U up?” in a late-night bid for a good time, the Portofino knows it’s pretty enough to be the one you wanted to take home in the first place.
