When it came time for Ferrari to pen the Amalfi, successor to the svelte Roma, the designers began by crafting a “speed form,” a sculpture of the body at its purest. Devoid of addenda like grilles, lights, and mirrors, this form represented the Amalfi’s essence. Ferrari’s designers then added the elements required for ventilation and illumination as subtly as possible so as not to disrupt the Amalfi’s sinewy shape. “On this car, the sculpture is more important than the graphics,” Andrea Militello, the head of exterior design for GT cars, said at the first drive in Portugal. “If I could have designed the car without lights or grilles, I would have,” he joked.
The sense of fluidity that Ferrari imbued into the exterior pervades the Amalfi’s every fiber. Capable of potent performance, thanks to a twin-turbocharged V-8, and handling with sports-car agility, the Amalfi adopts the personality of a stoic grand tourer, a comfortable cruiser unperturbed by the outside world. The Amalfi isn’t a drastic departure from the Roma from which it evolved but further hones the formula of a luxurious coupe that can still be driven hard.
The Amalfi’s gracefulness is most evident in the steering. The wheel is relatively thin by modern standards—especially compared with the meaty helms in BMW sports cars—and wrapped in rich leather. A big change from the Roma to the Amalfi is the welcome return of physical buttons on the steering wheel, including the “Engine Start” button and the manettino switch for the drive modes. These are far more intuitive than haptic controls, allowing you to adjust settings on the fly without needing to shift your eyes away from the next corner.
But it’s the steering action that truly elevates the Amalfi. In typical Ferrari fashion, the effort is extraordinarily light but incredibly precise and full of feedback. The quick steering rack requires only small movements to get the nose to dive into corners, making the car feel eager, and the low steering effort makes the motion feel natural and nearly telepathic. The quick ratio does not make the Amalfi feel darty on the highway, with the smaller inputs instead resulting in a car that asks little of its driver to cover long distances smoothly and swiftly.
The Amalfi’s fluidity also shines through in its chassis, the rigid bones complemented by magnetorheological adaptive dampers that work wonders. In Comfort mode, the Amalfi happily skirts over road imperfections, and even when it tightens up in Sport and Race, the ride remains fairly compliant. Activating the “bumpy road” feature while in Sport and Race relaxes the dampers, allowing the Amalfi to deftly absorb all but the biggest bumps with a shrug.
The coupe manages to feel both planted and playful, with Sport and Race modes permitting the tail to get loose but never in a way that feels uncontrolled. This is thanks to Ferrari’s Side Slip Control software, which makes you feel like a hero even if the computer is doing most of the work. The system also operates in conjunction with the revised active rear spoiler, which adjusts between three positions automatically to improve stability.
Ferrari paired sublime steering and handling with a beastly eight-cylinder engine. While it’s not quite the star of the show the way a screaming V-12 might’ve been, the Amalfi’s twin-turbo 3.9-liter V-8 delivers plenty of poke. It’s rated at 631 horsepower, up from 612 in the Roma, and 560 pound-feet of torque accessible at 3000 rpm. Ferrari says the Amalfi needs just 3.3 seconds to reach 62 mph, still quick even in a world of sub-2.0-second EVs.
On narrow Portuguese mountain roads, the Amalfi has all of the muscle you could ever need. Press the throttle, and the Amalfi rockets forward without hesitation, the eight-speed dual-clutch transaxle responding promptly to inputs regardless of the drive mode. The only time the Amalfi felt a bit ruffled was a pedal-to-the-floor moment on damp pavement—this is the least powerful current Ferrari, but it still produces nearly as much horsepower as an Enzo.
The gearbox is well-tuned, not just for sporty maneuvers but also for tootling around town. In Comfort mode, it upshifts more readily than Sport or Race, but it doesn’t shift prematurely and never feels bogged down or surprised when you ask for a bit more gusto. Although the V-8 doesn’t sound amazing at low rpm, it starts to sing as the revs pass 5000, emitting a roar that’s distinguished rather than rowdy.
Another big difference between the Roma and the Amalfi is a switch to brake-by-wire. The pedal is incredibly firm, with little travel required to operate the strong standard carbon-ceramic brakes and slow the Amalfi even from high speeds.
Along with physical steering-wheel controls, Ferrari also reworked the dashboard and center console to make the Amalfi’s cabin a nicer place to spend time. The 10.3-inch central touchscreen has switched to a horizontal layout and now sits lower in the dashboard to create an airier view outward and shift the focus to the supple leathers that line the curved binnacles. The center console, adorned with a cool aluminum trim, sits lower than on the Roma for a more open cabin. We wish the climate controls weren’t integrated into the screen, the seats had more bolstering, and the massage setting was more intense, but otherwise, the cabin is a lovely cocoon.