Ferrari California T (2014-2018) review - Practicality, comfort and boot space

The Ferrari California is billed as the Ferrari you can use every day, and it does have a surprisingly practical feel – although really only when judged by supercar standards.

 The cabin is spacious for two, and the driving position good for a wide range of drivers. The engine noise – especially out of Sport mode – is muted by the turbochargers and refinement is pretty impressive too. This certainly isn’t a highly-strung exotic that will wear you out on a long journey, unless you’re driving fast with the roof down when things become a bit blustery.

Size

The Ferrari California T is quite a compact car, measuring 4,570mm nose-to-tail and 1,910mm wide. It’s 1,322mm tall with the roof up. That means it’s a bit bigger in all directions than the Porsche 911 Turbo which is 4,507mm x 1,880mm x 1,294mm, and smaller than the Aston Martin Vanquish Volante which is 4,728mm x 1,912mm x 1,294mm. The Bentley GTC is bigger than all three at 4,806mm x 1,944mm x 1,397mm.

Leg room, head room & passenger space

While the front sports seats are figure-hugging but comfortable, the rear seats really are too small for regular use, although they do have Isofix child seat anchors. See them as extra luggage space though, and the California starts to make more sense – although with the roof down you don’t want to leave anything lying around on the back seat that might get sucked out into the slipstream!

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Boot

The two-piece roof folds into the boot in 14 seconds, and that still leaves 240 litres of space (there's 360 litres with the roof up), which is enough for a pair of weekend bags. The rear seats also fold down, which allows you to pass longer objects down the length of the cabin.