There are only a handful of brands that have an intangible greatness to them. The kind that becomes apparent the moment you touch, use or even look at their products. Ferrari is one such brand.

To drive a Ferrari is to drive a dream. It’s the bedroom wall poster; it’s Schumacher winning his 7th world title; it’s every on-screen appearance from Magnum PI to Goldeneye. A Ferrari is more than just a car – it’s a fantasy that never wanes. All of which puts a lot of pressure on the Italian marque every time it releases a new one.

One of the latest is this: the Ferrari Portofino. It’s a V8-powered, leather-clad GT car with a convertible roof. And 591bhp. It’s loud, absurdly quick but also comfortable and refined, ideal for a continental sojourn to the Italian Riviera it’s named after. If there was any performance anxiety during the design process, it’s not evident on the road. This might even be the ideal road car.

What Is It?

The Portofino can trace its roots back to the Daytona, one of the Italian marque’s most iconic cars of all. Again, no pressure then. It’s a familiar layout, and one that the Daytona owned in the late-60s/early-70s as Ferrari’s first modern GT car: rear-wheel-drive, front-engined, convertible, a combination just as exciting today as it was back then.

The Portofino is many cars in one. It’s admirably comfortable, albeit in not quite as drastic fashion as the Bentley Continental GT with its massaging seats. It effortlessly eats up the miles as you’d expect, and invites long drives with the eagerness of a child at Christmas.

Put the roof down and it’s a fun, family friendly sports car (it has two small rear seats), ideal for a weekend away. But switch the Mannetino dial on the steering wheel to ‘sport’, plant your right foot and it’s prohibitively fast. And loud. It’s the do-it-all Ferrari, and it never disappoints.