2026 Ferrari Amalfi First Look Atoning for Sins of the Past

Hi there, I'm Johnny Lieberman, you're watching Motor Trend, and this is the all-new 2026 Ferrari Amalfi. What's the Amalfi? Well, it's down the coast from Rome, and this is actually the successor to the Ferrari Roma. Now, what was the Ferrari Roma? Well, it was Ferrari's first effort in a while at a GT, a Grand Tourer. The idea was they were channeling something they called La Nuova Dolce Vita. Pardon my Italian, but it means the new sweet life. And specifically, they're referencing like the late 1950s, 1960s in Italy, when they had this real renaissance of arts, architecture, industrial design, and of course, car design. And in Ferrari's case, we had some of the most legendary cars of all time. You know, the 250 GT, short wheelbase, the 250 Lusso, the 250 GTO, you know, the most valuable cars in the world. Well, some of those beautiful cars in the world. And this was an attempt to recapture that energy and put it into a Grand Touring slash sports car package. And I feel they really succeeded. The Roma is one of my favorite Ferraris I've ever driven. So one of the controversial things about the Roma was the grill. It had this kind of like perforated shark nose thing, and they kind of threw that out and replaced it with this black bar here. There's like a grating down here, but this has really become a Ferrari signature having like a black kind of like almost like Zorro mask stretching between the headlights. Speaking of the headlights, not only have they simplified them and made them smaller, but if you look right here, that's a functional vent. So they've done a lot of work on the aerodynamics of the Amalfi. Not only does this reduce drag, but it also helps to cool the engine. And they didn't just do stuff on the front and back of the car. And I think this is actually my favorite part of the Amalfi. Not only does that bar continue where the taillights are hung off of it, the spoiler is active and actually has three positions. And when it's in its highest position, it produces something like 240 pounds of downforce at 155 miles an hour. So it is very functional, and they did such a nice job. I really think this is my favorite part of the car. It looks like a cross between a Porsche 928 and a TVR T350. Very space age, but very kind of butch and aggressive. And I just think it looks super, super cool. So the other thing that people I think rightly criticized about the Roma was the steering wheel controls, because everything except for the Manettino became haptic, like a little mini iPod screen or like an Apple Watch type thing. And they replaced everything with real buttons. And I think that's good. The haptic controls were maybe a good idea in the lab, but in the real world where you're doing this and you want to change something, it just didn't work so well. And especially the start-stop button, going back from a screen to a physical button is cool. Sadly, they didn't fix the digital mirror controls, but that's okay. Right here, this screen used to be portrait. They switched it to landscape. It looks much more integrated and much more elegant. It frees up some space here, and it gives you the idea that there's more room in the cabin, even though the wheelbase and the interior space is essentially the same. It feels more spacious, and it does really feel cool in here. And also, they've done this neat trick where it really feels like the driver has this part of the vehicle and the passenger, especially with this passenger screen, has their part of the vehicle. But yeah, this is a pretty cool place to hang out. Because it's essentially kind of a mid-cycle refresh plus, they have improved the car in a lot of fundamental ways. One is they gave it more power. Horsepower rises from 611 to 631. Torque stays the same at 561 pound-feet. But the engine is said to rev much more quickly. How did they do that? Better breathing, both intake and exhaust. They lightened the camshafts by almost three pounds, which is pretty light. It also has faster-spinning turbos. They say the turbo's revved to 175,000 RPM. It's got the ECU, the engine control unit, from the 296. Redline's been raised by 100, but it went from 75 to 7,600. Peak power's still 7,500. Torque is still basically a shell from 3,000 to almost 6,000 RPM is max torque. And if you drove the Roma, you know you put it in sport mode. It really does transform from this luxurious Grand Tourer to a legitimate sports car. And I see no reason for the Amalfi to be any different. So overall, the two things that I ever heard anyone say negatively about the Roma have been addressed. And I think the result, I think the Amalfi, Ferrari's going to have another hit on their hands. You know, it seems like this brand really has the whole sports car thing figured out. Anyway, thank you very much for watching, and we'll catch you on the next one.