First Look: The 2026 Ferrari Amalfi Wants to Atone For the Roma's Sins
Roma, we hardly knew ya.
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The Ferrari Roma is no more. What one might consider a midcycle refresh for most car brands instead results in a new model and a new name for Ferrari.
Such a move by Modena is not without precedent. The quite cool (V-12, two transmissions, AWD, shooting brake) Ferrari FF became the Lusso after five years. Likewise, the 488 morphed into the nearly mechanically identical F8 after just four years. With that in mind, meet the Amalfi, the newest Ferrari and successor to the wonderful (though perhaps misunderstood) Roma.
Why Overhaul the Roma?
To understand the Amalfi, you must first understand what Ferrari wanted to accomplish with the Roma. When it arrived in 2020, the Roma debuted with the concept of la nuovo dolce vita, or “the new sweet life,” a reference to the fecund, sexy period Rome and Italy experienced from the late 1950s through the 1960s.
Film, the arts, architecture, sports cars, and Italian culture in general all blossomed during this era. The Roma was intended to be a throwback to that style, that way of life, as well as a new entry point into the brand for people who were perhaps put off by the seriousness of razor-styled mid-engine coupes like the 488/F8 or snarling, fantastically expensive monsters like the F12 and 812 Superfast. Put another way, Ferrari wanted into the Porsche 911 Turbo/Aston Martin Vantage grand touring market.
We loved the Roma, declaring it “stunning” and “fantastically fun to drive.” However, the car was not without detractors. Many folks hated the perforated shark nose grille, and everybody rightly despised the heavy use of haptic switches instead of actual buttons, especially the extra fussy mirror controls.
The Amalfi’s job is to correct those mistakes while also ushering in new technologies underneath the revised metal, such as brake-by-wire and the engine control computer from the epic 296.
Here’s What the Amalfi Changes
Gone is the aforementioned grille, and the front end now features what’s quickly becoming a Ferrari family design trait: a black strip across the nose. While not as thick as the one found on the 12 Cilindri or as Dread Pirate Roberts as the mask on the F80’s face, the Amalfi’s thin black bar runs across its prow from headlight to headlight. We think it looks good, and it works with smaller headlights to simplify the entire front end. Chief design officer Flavio Manzoni says his team wanted to de-anthropomorphize the face, calling the result “a groove with lamps.”
This stylistic theme is repeated out back with the taillights. The Amalfi’s rear refresh works even better than the front’s, with the tail resembling a mashup of a Porsche 928, a TVR T350, and a spaceship.
Back to the front, the lower portion is simple black grating, though as with the Roma, Ferrari’s Centro Stile still struggles to properly integrate radar and parking sensors. They did a better job with the Amalfi’s sensors than the Roma’s, but only just.
On the inside, the headline is that Ferrari saw the error of its ways and replaced the haptic steering wheel controls with actual buttons, including the big red start button. Luddites rejoice. That said, the truly awful mirror controls remain—and are about half the size of an Apple Watch screen—but you can’t win them all.
The cabin itself has been reworked to be more cosseting and spacious with the showpiece being a centrally mounted piece of milled and anodized aluminum that elegantly separates the driver from the passenger. The central touchscreen has rotated from portrait to landscape, and as a result looks much more integrated.
The Heart of the Amalfi
Under the hood, the engine carries over from the Roma, but it’s been improved. Power from the 3.9-liter twin-turbo V-8 rises from 611 to 631 horsepower, while torque remains the same at 561 lb-ft and redline rises by 100 rpm to 7,600 rpm. Peak power is achieved at the old redline, 7,500 rpm, whereas peak torque occurs between 3,000 and 5,750 rpm.
Ferrari says the revised engine now revs more quickly than before. This was achieved via new camshafts that weigh roughly one-third as much as the Roma’s, better breathing on the intake and exhaust sides, a more powerful ECU from the 296, camshafts lightened by nearly three pounds, a reworked crankshaft, and faster turbos that now spin at 175,000 rpm.
The Amalfi’s aerodynamics have improved over the Roma’s, too. Because of openings above the headlights, the grille area is smaller. The twin openings not only reduce drag but also help cool the V-8. The new rear spoiler has three positions (down, mid, and high) and when fully deployed creates 242 pounds of downforce at 155 mph. Like the Roma, the Amalfi’s top speed should be right around 200 mph. Zero to 62 mph happens in a claimed 3.3 seconds, while 0–124 mph is said to take 9.0 flat. As with the Roma, which offered two body styles, we expect a convertible version of the Amalfi to be introduced shortly.
Named for the stunning coastal region in southern Italy, the Amalfi coupe will go on sale next year and start at around $275,000. Get your checkbook ready.
When I was just one-year-old and newly walking, I managed to paint a white racing stripe down the side of my father’s Datsun 280Z. It’s been downhill ever since then. Moral of the story? Painting the garage leads to petrolheads. I’ve always loved writing, and I’ve always had strong opinions about cars.
One day I realized that I should combine two of my biggest passions and see what happened. Turns out that some people liked what I had to say and within a few years Angus MacKenzie came calling. I regularly come to the realization that I have the best job in the entire world. My father is the one most responsible for my car obsession. While driving, he would never fail to regale me with tales of my grandfather’s 1950 Cadillac 60 Special and 1953 Buick Roadmaster. He’d also try to impart driving wisdom, explaining how the younger you learn to drive, the safer driver you’ll be. “I learned to drive when I was 12 and I’ve never been in an accident.” He also, at least once per month warned, “No matter how good you drive, someday, somewhere, a drunk’s going to come out of nowhere and plow into you.”
When I was very young my dad would strap my car seat into the front of his Datsun 280Z and we’d go flying around the hills above Malibu, near where I grew up. The same roads, in fact, that we now use for the majority of our comparison tests. I believe these weekend runs are part of the reason why I’ve never developed motion sickness, a trait that comes in handy when my “job” requires me to sit in the passenger seats for repeated hot laps of the Nurburgring. Outside of cars and writing, my great passions include beer — brewing and judging as well as tasting — and tournament poker. I also like collecting cactus, because they’re tough to kill. My amazing wife Amy is an actress here in Los Angeles and we have a wonderful son, Richard.Read More
