Plenty of cars have been named after plenty of places on the globe, and sometimes it's obvious that shrewd product planners did their homework. You can easily imagine a Chevrolet Bel Air cruising down Sunset Boulevard, for example, and if you must go exploring northern Canada, we can think of worse rides than the Toyota Tundra.
Sometimes, though, the names simply don't fit. Take the Chrysler Sebring: a car that had about as much to do with endurance racing as velour seats have to do with luxury.
For geographic-appropriate naming, few have done better than Ferrari did when it unveiled the California in 2008, and now there's a new, more-powerful model, the $198,973 California T. It's a drop-top roadster that's perfect for seeing all the lovely sights its west-coast namesake has to offer -- and perfect for being seen while doing it.
New enough
2008's Ferrari California was a hard-top convertible with a 453-horsepower V-8 mounted in the traditional place: up front under the hood. Power went to the rear wheels, also traditional, but was directed through Ferrari's first double-clutch gearbox, a seven-speed capable of changing cogs in milliseconds. Two doors allowed access to four seats -- though the two in the back were tight, to say the least.
In the new California T the formula stays the same, but a few key variables have changed. The biggest, literally and metaphorically, is a new motor under the hood. The 3.8-liter lump is still a V-8, but this time it comes equipped with not one but two turbochargers, adding an even 100 horsepower to the tally. That's 553 total.
The outside is refreshed as well, the car wearing a new, more purposeful visage. It's a bit more menacing, too, a look helped by narrower LED headlights. The grille is significantly broader, a bigger grin reflecting the wider smile the driver is hopefully sporting. That intake works in concert with a pair of vents sculpted into the long, low hood to ensure those twin-turbos don't cook. Enlarged vents down low on the bumper pull cool air to the brakes.
The rear has seen fewer revisions; twin tail lamps still mounted high in what has become a modern Ferrari trademark. Quad-exhaust pipes, now arrayed horizontally rather than vertically, poke out of a massive damper that sucks air from below to provide downforce. A trio of silver-colored vertical strakes add a fair bit of visual purpose, if nothing else.
On the roads
A car like the California T is best tested with its top down, and while I evaluated this car in the east, rather than on the highways of its namesake out west, heady temperatures and sunny skies made for ideal drop-top conditions.
That top retracts in just under 20 seconds. That's an interval comparable with the best when it comes to hard-top stowage, yet still plenty long enough to make for nervous changes at streetlights. You must be at a complete standstill to raise or lower the roof, so you're better off pulling into somewhere safe before making the attempt.
That the top can neither raise nor lower at speed is frustrating, but this does at least give you another excuse to test out the Cali T's acceleration when merging back into traffic. As with other modern Ferraris, there is a selection of ways to unleash that power, toggled via the little red "manettino" dial on the steering wheel.
Comfort and Sport are the two available positions. Leave the anodized indicator in the first and you'll be presented with a very comfortable, very refined means of transportation. The suspension offers the right amount of pliancy to soften creases in pavement or to mute separation joints on concrete, yet body control remains solid. The dual-clutch transmission adjusts itself into proper slushbox territory, letting you smoothly come to a stop, then cruise away from a light without any of the kicks or lurches of earlier semi-auto shifters.
And there's also the lack of unwanted sound. Despite the low-profile, high-grip Pirelli P Zeros at every corner, road noise is largely absent. Indeed, it seems Ferrari went to some interesting extremes to make that happen, including lining the wheel-wells with carpet. The exhaust, too, goes mute in Comfort mode, useful for maintaining good relations with neighbors.
In Sport mode the transmission comes alive, popping up through the gears with far greater aggression and making the exhaust bark on rev-matched downshifts.
Turn the manettino knob to Sport and instantly things get a lot more lively. The adaptive suspension cinches down a few notches, communicating more of the road surface through the racing wheel, yet still compliant enough to protect any orthodontia. The transmission also comes alive, popping up through the gears with far greater aggression and making the exhaust bark on rev-matched downshifts.
Dropping the top takes nearly 20 seconds. Tim Stevens/CNET A car like the California T is best tested with its top down
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