First Drive: Ferrari California

When it comes to Ferrari convertibles, I’ve had a bit of bad luck. The first time I took out a Ferrari convertible to drive, it was the Ferrari 458 Spider, a beautiful car that I happened to take out during a terrible dust storm. I did end up with some eerie desert shots of the car, but still, I would have loved to have driven the car up and down the coastal road on a beautiful day. I was later offered the Ferrari California, but it was in the summer and I had to pass on it, then again this past summer I was offered the new and gorgeous Ferrari Portofino to test drive, again I was super tempted but had to pass since it was too hot to drive with the roof down.

But, recently while talking to the Ferrari team, I brought up the Portofino again. I really wanted to take the car out but turns out their test drive vehicle was in Oman for an event and wouldn’t be back in Kuwait for a couple of weeks. So we came up with a cool idea, I’d do a heritage drive of a sort. While waiting for the Portofino to arrive to Kuwait, I’d take out the older Ferrari California, and then the newer Ferrari California T before finally taking out the Ferrari Portofino. Three Ferraris, obviously I wasn’t going to say no.

I ended up picking up a red (Rosso Corsa) Ferrari California last week on a beautiful day. The sky was blue and the weather was cool so first thing I did was drop the roof before leaving the dealership to run a few errands. People have a love and hate relationship with the California with most of the hate coming from Ferrari enthusiasts. Now that I’ve driven a few Ferraris I can understand where the misunderstanding of the California comes from. While all the Ferraris I’ve driven have been pretty aggressive and intimidating, I found the California to be fairly chill. As soon as I sat in the car I felt comfortable, mostly because the controls were similar to other non-Ferrari cars. With the Ferrari’s I had previously driven, the steering wheel contained all the buttons for controlling things like turn signals, wipers, lights etc.. It’s a bit overwhelming at first to see all these buttons when you’re used to having levers behind the steering to control these things. It takes a bit of getting used to but the California had a fairly normal steering wheel with just a Start/Stop button and the ride control switch. It felt more like a normal car and I think it’s little things like this that put off the Ferrari enthusiasts.

Driving the California didn’t feel scary either. The California wasn’t crazy fast and felt very manageable and friendlier than say the Ferrari 488GTB. The ride wasn’t harsh, and the car didn’t look aggressive nor did it feel like it was trying to get your driving license revoked. It felt like a beginners Ferrari which is why the car appeals a lot more to women. In fact, when I posted pictures of the car on my instagram, all of the positive comments I got that included heart eyes emojis came from my female followers, while all the puke emojis came from guys.

The California is a car you could use daily, it clears speedbumps easily, it has back seats which are fairly usable and it has a folding hard top which I always prefer over the soft ones. Would I buy one? No I wouldn’t, if I was to buy a Ferrari it would for sure be the GTC4Lusso or the older FF. Actually, if we’re being hypothetical here and talking about convertibles, then the Ferrari convertible I’d want is the Ferrari 488 Pista Spider. But that’s not gonna happen.

The Ferrari California I drove was a 2014 model and is part of their pre-owned collection. All their pre-owned cars are approved and certified by the special Ferrari Approved Program so you’re pretty much buying a used car that’s as good as new.

The car I drove is listed on their website for KD35,000 and you can check it out along with the rest of their pre-owned cars [Here]