Ferrari California

Design and styling

When designing the Ferrari California, Pininfarina opted for a classic, sculpted chassis, with a long bonnet and the passenger area slightly weighted towards the rear. The side of the car features a strong, dynamic, raked line. The line lifts at the height of the door handle to trace the outline of the typical Ferrari rear bumper. The air intake in the front bumper is enhanced by a traditional grille. The slender air intake vent on the bonnet and the side air vents both echo distinctive features of the 1957 Ferrari California 250.

Exterior style

The Ferrari California is ideal for those looking for a highly exclusive sports car, that consider driving enjoyment a value to pursue on every occasion: a weekend out of town, a long journey, shopping in the city, or simply getting to the office. The rear baggage space has a capacity which is unique for a convertible of this type. The boot, for the first time, connects directly to the rear bench or seats via the folding seat-back. When folded down, the hard-top takes up only 100 of the 340 litres in the luggage compartment, thus saving plenty of storage capacity. A wide opening of the luggage compartment level with the bottom simplifies the various operations. The large amount of space available allows two large and two small suitcases to be accommodated or, with the seat back folded down, two golf bags, skis, or snowboards.

Ferrari once again turned to its historical partner Pininfarina for the design of the California. The result was muscular, flowing, sculpted lines where considerable attention was paid to ensuring perfect proportions and harmoniously balanced volumes with the roof up or down.

Work on defining the styling was undertaken in close collaboration with Ferrari's own in-house Styling Centre, and great emphasis was placed on characterizing the design and function of every individual detail to confer an immediate and lasting sense of quality and bespoke craftsmanship.

The sides are characterised by a strong dynamic line rising to the level of the door handle, to create a powerful and muscular outline of the rear wheel arch, in line with the car's character. The waist is high, while convex and concave surfaces follow each other with pleasing fluidity. The nose, which takes up the characteristics of the side and rear lines, has the teardrop lighting cluster and the slatted radiator grill typical of Ferrari. The slender air intake vent on the bonnet and the side air vents both echo distinctive features of the 1957 Ferrari California 250.

Driving Style and Habitability

Entering into the Ferrari California one immediately notices the high quality of its materials, together with the traditional skills of the craftsmen who have selected the finest leather to cover the dash, the interior and the seats with couture precision. The seats can be adjusted in every conceivable way to give any driver exactly the right position. The back-rest structure is in magnesium, designed to achieve the maximum in comfort and ergonomics while reducing weight at the same time. The new infotainment system, with its 6.5-inch touch-screen display and its intuitive controls, offers maximum functionality and ease of use.

The designers of the Ferrari California started out with a precise and ambitious objective: to create a GT with no limitations to its use. Perfect for sports driving but also suitable for long journeys and trips to town. For work or for pleasure. A car 4.56 metres long, with the space to comfortably seat a driver or passenger which represent more than the 99 percentile of the population's stature, and making possible the novel 2+ configuration with a large useable space behind the rear seats. The car allows, on request, a rear seating area with two seats and Isofix attachments, indicated for hosting two children.

Alternatively, one can request a bench with the space for storing two travel trolleys or two light golf bags. In both versions there is, for the first time in a Ferrari, a fold-down rear seat-back, allowing the California to be used in different situations by linking the cockpit with the spacious 340-litre boot, which becomes 240 litres with the roof down.

Retractable hard-top

The retractable hard top (RHT) is unique in terms of its movement, opening/closing speed, stowage method and materials used.

This RHT differs from others in that several movements take place simultaneously rather than sequentially, thus optimising the length of time it takes to complete the entire opening/closing cycle.
In fact, both cover and folded roof move simultaneously so that the total cycle time is just 14 seconds.

The two sections fold neatly onto each other's concave side, which leaves much more space available for the boot, a total of 260 litres, in fact.

This stowage system is so efficient that even when the top is down, two pieces of luggage can still fit in the boot.

Engine

The F430 is powered by a new 90° V8 featuring Ferrari's traditionally uncompromising design approach with a flat-plane crank (180° between throws). This is an all-new unit that does not share any components with the 360 Modena's engine. The improvement in terms of performance, weight and reduction of overall dimensions is the result of applying Ferrari's wealth of F1 experience to its road cars. Despite a 20% increase in engine displacement (from 3,586 cc to 4,308 cc), engine weight has grown minimally by just 4 kg, while perform-ance is considerably improved across the board. Torque increases by 25% (465 Nm at 5,250 rpm, 80% of which is already available at 3,500 rpm) and power by 23% (490 hp at 8,500 rpm).

The engine is extremely compact with a cylinder spacing of just 104 mm. Similarly, Ferrari's engineers integrated the sump and main bearings in a single casting which, along with a smaller-diameter twin-plate clutch and flywheel, has reduced the engine height between the bottom of the oil sump and the crankshaft to just 130 mm (from 145 mm on the 360 Modena power unit).

In line with the latest developments in high specific output engines, there are new 4-valve cylinder heads,and the inlet tracts and valve diameters are derived directly from designs used on the F1 engines. Support from the company's Gestione Sportiva racing side was essential in defining performance characteristics.

The twin overhead camshafts per cylinder bank feature continuously variable timing on both inlet and exhaust cams, and the valve gear is driven by hydraulic tappets.

Actuation of the variable valve timing is guaranteed by a high pressure hydraulic system (20 bar), obtained by using a supplementary pump, an external accumulator and a circuit that works in parallel with the oil circuit for the hydraulic tappets. This ensures that a full timing cycle is completed in 0.1 seconds.

Ferrari has dropped the mixed gear/toothed belt distribution system for a chain-driven system, thus reducing the overall length of the engine. Crankshaft, con rods and pistons are also all-new. The dry sump lubrication system comprises a series of external pumps (thus reducing the overall height of the sump) and a circuit that has been optimised by eliminating the oil radiator and introducing a water/oil heat exchanger mounted inside the engine vee. Three scavenge pumps guarantee that excess oil is drawn out of the bottom of the cylinder block under all driving conditions, creating a strong vacuum around the crankshaft and thus reducing power loss through attrition.

The intake manifold features straight inlet tracts to the two central plenums which, in turn, have trumpets individually cast at the top of the tracts for each cylinder to ensure optimum air flow to the cylinder heads.

A rotating drum - actuated pneumatically by the engine control unit – compensates for variations in the effective volume inside the two plenums to optimise the intake resonance characteristics and therefore maximise the torque curve throughout the rev range. The performance targets set were achieved also thanks to unrestricted intake and exhaust ducts for optimum gas flow efficiency and the high compression ratio (11.3:1).

The painstaking care taken over optimising internal fluid dynamics and combustion efficiency has ensured a high specific power output despite conforming to the latest Euro 4 and LEV2 emissions standards. Engine management is via two electronic Bosch Motronic ME7 control units with twin motorised throttles, single coils and active anti-knocking control throughout the entire rev range.

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Roll bar

The roll-bar is a passive safety feature designed to protect occupants should the car roll over.
The system is installed behind the backrest of the rear seats and is hidden by the rear backrest trim so it is normally not visible.

The safety control unit will detect if the car begins to roll over and deploys the roll-bar in a breathtakingly fast 190 ms.

Multilink suspension

The Ferrari California's suspension retains the traditional double wishbone system on the front while a new generation of multilink suspension has been specifically developed for the rear. The multilink system increases the longitudinal flexibility of the suspension, retaining high values of transversal rigidity. This means greater impact absorption capacity and lower vibration and acoustic levels. In short, greater travelling comfort and identical vehicle handling values.
For the Ferrari California, the magneto-rheological dampers used for the first time on the Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano are available on request. Compared to traditional olio-dynamic systems, these systems provide much shorter response times because they do not have mechanical controls and adjustments. As a result, under high performance driving conditions, the movement of the vehicle body is markedly reduced, to the benefit of all road-holding indicators.