Ferrari 849 Testarossa Spider review

A Ferrari with three electric motors and—

An electric Ferrari? Kill it with fire!

Yowch. Yep, the Luce may have made some people a little… twitchy about the future direction of Ferrari, but fear not. The 849 Testarossa Spider is Maranello firmly in its trad heartland: a stupid-fast, mid-engined convertible supercar equally at home pounding round the Nurburgring or posturing round Knightsbridge.

That its potential owners are much more likely to engage in the latter than the former is a discussion for another day.

But you said electric…

The 849 Spider does indeed boast a trio of e-motors – two on the front axle, one at the rear – for a combined 217bhp, but they’re very much the support act to the ICE centrepiece.

The 4.0-litre V8 generates over 800bhp of its own accord, a combustive process that’s all the more apparent with no roof to shield you from the turbocharged mayhem.

All in, this is a cabrio that makes 1,036bhp, and that will hit 0-62mph in 2.25 seconds and 205mph flat out. Few drop-tops have ever done it quicker.

It’s not slow then…

Even by modern supercar standards, the 849’s turn of pace is shocking, the sort of acceleration that causes an involuntary volley of swearing.

Spearing along a Tenerife mountain road, roof down, V8 lunging for the limiter, changes thumping through the whipcrack eight-speed box, crushing the brakes as late as you dare, it’s a deeply overwhelming experience, a blitzkrieg of noise and sensation and relentless thrust.

But more than the speed, the most shocking thing about the 849 is that it makes a thousand horsepower feel like… an amount of power you, a regular human, could actually use.

There’s a whole load of complicated electronic management going on beneath the surface but, on the road at least, you never sense the algorithms doing their thing, only that you’re soon asking more of the tyres than you’d previously thought sensible.

And, once you’re done driving like a deranged, power-crazed beast, wind whipping your hair to a wild thatch, you can dial it back into EV mode, pop the roof up, and saunter along like you’re in a Nissan Leaf. In a good way.

You’re saying it’s got a lot of bandwidth?

We’re not saying that, because ‘bandwidth’ is a word that should never be used unless referring to actual, y’know, bandwidth.

Do you have a better word?

No.

So go on then.

It’s got a lot of bandwidth. Stick the 849 into electric-only – where it’ll do 15-odd miles on battery power alone, provided that none of those 15 miles involve a significant hill or significant acceleration – and shut the roof, and you’ve got the quietest, mildest-mannered EV that ever did live.

The novelty of this lasts for approximately 15 seconds before you decide to drop the roof again and fire up the V8.

Does it look like a proper half-million pound supercar though?

The 849’s design wasn’t met with universal approval, but in cabrio guise we reckon it’s a winner. Against the Luce, it barely looks controversial at all.

It’s a chunk… meaner in the metal than in photos: air vents strung with chicken-wire, flat-black exhaust covers, those 70s-Le-Mans-race inspired winglets at the rear. The 849 may not be a cohesive design, but it looks like it means business – and deleting the roof brings a dash more spectacle.

Put it this way: it’s the sort of car that makes children point and shout, and grown men on motorbikes risk their lives attempting 70mph selfies, which we suspect is exactly the effect most potential 849 customers wish to achieve.

How does it sound?

One of the main reasons, of course, to go cabrio over coupe is because you have ears, and you love them, and you want to do right by them.

Ferrari’s keen to point out how much work went into tuning the Spider’s V8 for a different sonic character through every part of the rev range. And, on the move, the 849 Spider certainly makes an exciting array of grunts, growls and howls, leaving you in no doubt there’s a lot of combustion happening in the near vicinity.

But those noises are bassier and gruffer than the screaming nat-asp Ferrari V8s of old, and still not a patch on the Lamborghini Revuelto’s V12 symphony.

It’s a good noise. It’s not an all-time great noise. At the same time, is the Luce going to sound better?

Don’t mention the L-word…

Jony Ive’s electric four-door will no doubt continue to dominate the conversation for the foreseeable, but the 849 Spider is a welcome reminder that Ferrari’s still Ferrari.

This is Maranello doing what Maranello does best: a great barnstorming event of a supercar, with handling to make you feel like a hero.

If you’re in the market for an 849 Testarossa – congratulations, well done, glad Google finally took that AI start-up off your hands – why wouldn’t you have the Spider over the coupe?

Despite a 90kg weight increase, the Spider gives away basically nothing in dynamics to the coupe, while removing the roof adds a welcome dose of ceremony. Throw in that all-electric ability, and it’s several (expensive) cars rolled into one (very expensive) car.

The 849’s always been a supercar with a serious breadth of abilities. The Spider gives it a yet-wider wingspan.