Exactly, what is the right word to describe the Ferrari California? What single word would one use to describe that perfect mythical lover -- you know, the kind who exudes never-ending sexual tension yet engenders none of the seemingly endless drama that is the reason nobody ever really marries the one "that got away?"...

I'm struggling to find exactly the right word to describe the Ferrari California. It's always a struggle to find precisely the right bon mot ...-- but Ferrari's latest front-midship hardtop convertible is making it especially difficult....
This gorgeous, two-door droptop clothed in rather subdued silver metallic garb. capable of launching the car to 100 kilometres an hour in less than four seconds (thanks to a fancy Dan launch control system similar to Porsche's) and topping it out at almost 320 klicks is.....
What single word would one use to describe that perfect mythical lover -- you know, the kind who exudes never-ending sexual tension yet engenders none of the seemingly endless drama that is the reason nobody ever really marries the one "that got away?"...
The reason for all this dictionarial angst is the California is amazingly if not completely devoid of the foibles that are supposed to be the penalty of being rich enough to afford a Ferrari. Since Enzo Ferrari first started producing road cars in 1947, his machines have exacted a price for their four-wheeled magic. In the early days, all those orgiastic multiple carburetors needed constant fettling. Brakes sometimes didn't. Comfort was of the "it fits Guiseppe, it'll have to fit you" variety.
More recently, electronic fuel injection and the discovery by the Italians of electric seat adjusters and actual functioning air conditioning (will miracles never cease) put most of those old issues to bed.
This brings me back to the California and my struggle for a single word to describe sexiness without spectacle, passion without turmoil and Ferraris without quirks. For the California is something new altogether (and not necessarily welcomed by card-carrying Tifosi, who often see these traditional shortcomings as rites of passage), a product from Modena that is no more difficult to put up with than an Acura.
In all regards, the Ferrari is, well, a real car. For instance, it has a functioning navigation system, with nary an electronic foible one might expect of something both digital and Italian. The same LCD screen turns into a display for the rear-racing backup camera that is accompanied by a -- when did the Italians become politically correct -- truck-like beep to alert that you're backing up. There's even a high-tech TFT instrument panel that allows a driver to select the information-- engine temperature, etc. --he or she wants displayed.
The hardtop roof collapses in a perfectly orchestrated, 14-second mechanical plie and (will wonders never cease), the California has more roof-stowed cargo space than a similarly outfitted Infiniti G37 convertible. There's even a fold-down, pass-through rear ledge in back that allows the cabin and trunk to be combined for longer items such as golf bags. Gadzooks! The Italians offering a more practical automobile than the Japanese? It costs four times as much, but, surely, we should be looking for locusts.
The entire car is just so drivable. The steering is amazingly light. My mother could wheel the California around a supermarket parking lot with nary a problem. I thought I had found a foible when the transmission started holding on to gears too long in automatic mode, causing the engine to rev far higher than necessary, but then I flicked the steering-wheel mounted Manettino knob (which controls everything from the traction control system to the transmission shifting patterns) from "sport" to "comfort" and, lo and behold, the seven-speed dual-clutch tranny became as smooth shifting and civilized as a Lexus's.
On the other hand, it is a Ferrari. So, when you start paddle-shifting that Getragsourced gearbox, the shifts are very quick (taking but an almost imperceptible 20 milliseconds), just the thing to keep up with an engine that seems to rev to eight grand at the blink of an eye.
So, do not be fooled by all this talk of docility and civil comportment, for the California is still very much a Ferrari. This means that what it does best is get you all hot and bothered, making you write bad cheques and leaving you-- gasping and clutching--trying to explain to your new friends at the Ontario Provincial Police why temptation was impossible to resist....

http://www.nationalpost.com/cars/story.html?id=2996178
 

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