2021 Ferrari Roma Review // $300,000 Roller Coaster...Of Emotions

we really going to do this i can't change all ways now this is our first press car from ferrari you know they're never going to give us a press car ever again right you don't know that you're watching throttle house i'm thomas and i'm james and we have a problem well we've got lots of problems that's true lots today's problem is we're trying to figure out is if you're really really really ridiculously good looking is life easier for you are things handed to you on a silver platter and is that okay and as a result of that are you missing things without the adversity maybe there's no growth are you all appearance and no character take for example the ferrari roma it's got a ferrari badge and it is really really ridiculously good looking so why don't you just show them what you mean [Music] okay let's take chris pratt for example when he started he was andy parks and rec lived in a pit wasn't exactly the most attractive gentleman in the world but he was funny and lovable and as a result everyone started to love chris pratt now avengers guardians of the galaxy he's a hero and he's funny so you see he's kind of got the whole thing as a result of not looking like chris pratt looks right now for his whole life the problem is we live in a world whether you like it or not where you can become world famous on tick tock or instagram literally just by being good looking i guess what we're asking then is is this ferrari roma kind of like chris pratt or is it just a pretty face we do car reviews track tests and quite a lot of messing around so subscribe and hit the bell let's start in here there's lots to talk about okay every single thing is a capacitive touch button there's no physical buttons anywhere but there's no haptic feedback and there's no physical click to it so you don't really know you're not confident when you've actually selected anything including the mirror adjustment try doing that on the fly you'll get in an accident for example the engine start stop button is not a physical button it's just a little screen which kind of robs some of the drama from it i want to push that big red start stop button or like in a lamborghini like a fighter pilot you flip up the thing and you launch a missile and maybe maybe that would be okay still probably not if there wasn't a two-second delay minimum to any input you give it even the fact that there's a little physical wheel on the back of the steering wheel for the volume because you can't use this screen over here for that that would be idiotic even with the volume wheel on the back of the steering wheel there's still a delay another thing is that the turn signal buttons are on the steering wheel and like they are on all ferraris it's not actually that big of a deal i got used to it but the problem is is that using my stubby little trump thumbs i when i select the left one i accidentally hit the capacitive touch button for the voice control it will inevitably i didn't understand what you said interrupt you it's really loud and then it's not easy to make it go away either this new screen by the way is brand new ferrari has implemented it in all of their cars and it's visually fantastic i love what it looks like and you get this big yellow ferrari tack until you plug in apple carplay which covers the entire screen and then you don't get to see your attack and car play at the same time and if you want to navigate carplay by the way you have to use this little touch pad which is the slowest most unusable thing i think i've ever used in a car it's borderline dangerous to use on the highway so if you want to see your attack and have fun you gotta hold this home button down for a second and you have no idea where you are on your map which means that the only viable navigation that you have is the one that ferrari provides over here which like all cars is obviously crap this screen by the way is on a weird slant it doesn't look anything like that screen it looks five years behind and it is also laggy and not very intuitive and then right below that is this little h-gate shifter homage which is supposed to look like the old hgate shifters from ferraris back in the day but the problem with it is that it's domed and chrome so if the sun is in the sky which it does do once a day it will reflect into your eyes okay so obviously i had a lot to say but even with those issues the roma does have a moment past 7000 rpm where the engine comes alive and you are reminded that you are in a ferrari you do have to use the paddles because the transmission has a pathological need to upshift regardless of what mode you're in it's a very finicky dual clutch where sometimes it will roll back when sitting at a light and sometimes it will roll you forward like a torque converter it has a mind of its own but so does the car it's occasionally a cruel mistress but when you treat it right it is a real ferrari especially from the outside so before james had to go and promised to pretend that the electronics didn't exist i pulled over so we could talk about the styling but it's so good looking is that enough james all right we'll get to that in a bit okay let's just talk about the design a bit more so people this is quite controversial because it's missing some classic ferrari things yes like the ferraris the recent ferraris have had a vertical entrance for the headlight here yes it's just gone straight horizontally yes and on the rears we've lost the circular ferrari tail lights lights are the taillights are weird yeah they're like they're a bit strange yeah but i think it is wonderful yeah okay so all those things aside it all works not as side width as a package this is like jaw-droppingly like achingly good-looking like the proportions are perfect is there a better car it's perfect they're a better looking car on the road i don't know i i yeah maybe but like i'd have to think about it people have their reservations about the grill yeah because ferrari normally do those big black squares this is more of a small it's also body colored but it's body color yeah which on like things like white and stuff it gets a bit too obvious i think it's it's hidden here i will say this is not the most exciting color you can get the romero in and when we found out we were getting it in blue roma i was like oh yeah it's blu roma right so we googled it and if you google blue roma and they showed that the stunning bright blue one literally we found a blue roman it wasn't this blue romance yeah this is closer to gray i still like the speck but it's closer to gray it's subtle speaking of the grille actually yeah i watched a video by frank stevenson the designer did the mc-12 uh did the mclaren p1 yeah ferrari f430 yeah he did a discussion on this it's great discussion actually yeah and he said that he would have preferred the grill in black and he showed a renderer of it and when he did that and it was on a red one i was like wow that is just the mazda rx vision yeah it does look like that right which in defense of ferrari mazda never actually made it's very easy to make a drawing and post it online yeah this is this looks like sorry they did make an rx mission but it's not in production this looks like a concept car it's like it's unbelievable like you you'd see this at a show and be like oh it would never look like that i would never pass it yeah exactly but then it does so i thought that was really interesting and considering this is mostly you know even though you've got your reservations yeah this is mostly a dream for people and ferrari know that so the configurator online is actually quite fun it is really cool there's a night mode it's got 360. it's not as good as genesis for some reason genesis has the best configuration but this one is still really fun it's still got those gran turismo vibes yep that's in like the game not the grand tour it does have those as well as the game yes it has a mind of its own upset yeah i compared it to a video game okay so this car is beautiful we know that and just quickly pop the hood do you want to see it okay one of the best looking v8 engines we've seen it is really really really nice yeah all right i've i've damaged me back he has usually i'm the one with the bad back he can't bend over i'm 29 this isn't supposed to happen oh look at that that this bit here looks like something that morgan freeman's character in batman would give bruce wayne yes it does that looks like a suit that can fly yeah it'll stop a bullet in a knife for sure but not maybe not a bullet that's what he said um so this car is beautiful we know that yeah is that enough james is it enough to be beautiful can you get by on your looks alone don't ask me yeah well not you why don't you why don't you go see if this has a sense of humor all right okay a sense of humor is great and we'll get to that in a second but this is a grand tourer so by our definition that means it's got to have style comfort performance at speed as long as you're not using any of the ui which i agree is garbage or going around a strip mall car park this car can be brilliant now the first point style subjective but given how many looks this is getting while i'm driving on this on the road i'm pretty sure it's got that down and then there's the speed as far as grand tourers go this one is pretty light it weighs under 3 500 pounds so stick a 3.9 liter v8 with 612 horsepower and 561 pound-feet of torque up front going just to those rear wheels hip boogies and even though it's turbocharged they've made it feel naturally aspirated so you want to chase that magic dragon the red line which ferrari knows is addictive it's part of the addiction equation it's why you want to drive the other part of that equation is the sound that the car makes it's not as sonorous as one would want it to be look at that perfect use of the indicators didn't hit the voice command [Music] it's fun on the up shift but it just down low it's just it's just a bit boomy it's a bit droney a maserati gran turismo which is not a distant relation to this car sounds a lot better so does an lc 500 and even something like an f-type r has a bit more theater going on [Music] that's the other part of the ferrari equation the car is playful yes it's a grand tourer the ride is lovely and it's refined on the highway it's quite quiet so you can drive this across the country but if you want to play with it it has that rear end play i wish it gets stuck with saying that it will lose the tail no problem and because of how light it is and how quick the steering ratio is it just feels so darty it feels smaller than it is and there is a bit more theater going on because this is a 5 000 steering wheel carbon fiber with leds and if you don't option apple carplay because it does block everything and it's rubbish to use you actually save five thousand dollars because carplay costs five thousand dollars in this car something that comes standard on base economy cars ferrari charges five grand for but if you don't get that then technically the 5 000 carbon fiber led steering wheel is free i'm not an accountant but i'm pretty sure that's correct you know that that is all ferrari and and in a weird turn of events thomas and i have actually both lived with this car normally only one of us gets to live with it and as much as he has his gripes with it and they are all valid i somehow still love this car and you know we talk about cars when they get to a certain price range they need to also have some emotional connection with the driver and as weird as it sounds you know something like the turbo s as good as it was this is only 25 percent more i know obviously in a ridiculous level of price here but it's only 25 more and i would take this over a turbo s every day of the week because of the way it makes me feel every time i get into it and i'm listening to music i'm driving along and i'm watching people admire its looks i feel like that one summer evening that's the perfect temperature and i'm dressed in the right clothes i'm excited for the event you have that first drink is just it's that feeling it's the glorious summer evening feeling and in the turbo s i just feel like i'm driving a really fast car this makes me feel something which for 300 grand it should before we pick this car up i said to thomas that my requirements for this car already knowing how it looks is it just has to be easy to drive and sound good on top of the looks and it's not that easy at low speed but it's otherwise it's not challenging and it sounds okay so it isn't a clear win but based on the way it makes me feel you're sitting in the cockpit looking over these arches and that beautiful design in front the yellow gauge cluster in front of me if i haven't got carplay on the lights flashing it just works it works for me and that is beautiful it doesn't have to work for everyone but it works for me and like if you're someone that's bought into the idea the erroneous idea that a porsche is a poor man's ferrari i at least don't mind the flip side of it which is that this is a rich man's porsche because i i really it does have so much charm so for me and for everyone that sees this car drive by or parked anywhere the roma is a huge success no it's not perfect but nothing is and i think that just based on looks alone it would probably still get by no it wouldn't james it's three hundred thousand dollars it has to be more than just a pretty face okay but so you agree it's a pretty face yeah definitely okay and that it successfully pays homage to the 60s gt cars yes but it's just but it's just flawed in a bunch of places many places yeah okay but by your definition and this is what you say all the time isn't the charm of italian cars that they are great and that they are beautiful and in spite of all their issues we love them yeah okay and by that measure the roma is a success yeah right so what we've learned then is that it's not what's on the inside that counts it's what you look like that's a bad message it's not correct okay then maybe digging deeper isn't our thing and perhaps one shouldn't with the roma because silly metaphors and jokes aside as it stands we think that the ferrari roma makes you feel as good as it looks which is a win because ferrari isn't just about actually being in the driver's seat it's about the wanderlust the dream of cruising down the highway at sunset no the roma isn't actually all that good in many ways but seeing as ferraris live rent-free inside most of our mines instead of in our garages i guess that makes the roma by default exactly what it was meant to be i'm in an automatic car i'm rolling back in first gear gaining speed why is that why is that it doesn't do that last time last time it went forward in first gear why am i is this how it ends this can't be how it ends

Channel: Throttle House

Views: 169,901

Rating: 4.9525523 out of 5

Keywords: Ferrari roma, ferrari roma review, roma v8, ferrari v8, ferrari review, ferrari roma launch, roma 0-60, ferrari drag race, ferrari track test, ferrari road review, ferrari vs lambo, ford vs ferrari, ferrari race, ferrari fail, ferrari crash, ferrari vs porsche, porsche 911, ferrari roma, best ferrari, ferrari gt, best gt car, f12, 2021 ferrari, 2022 ferrari, audi, new ferrari, ferrari vs rolls royce, roma vs continental gt, roma vs flying spur, rolls royce dawn, huracan

Id: eoozoM8eqeM

Length: 17min 30sec (1050 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 08 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/digistil]

Ferrari charges $5,000 for CarPlay. Oof.

[u/TopicHopeful]

Love these reviews, honest and insightful and unbiased. Looking forward to more reviews.

[u/coastal_potato]

Nice to see an honest review of some major flaws, even though it might cost them access in the future. Surprised (mildly) that other recent reviews overlooked them.

Wonder if SavageGeese is getting a turn. Can see him being brutally honest…and why he could struggle getting press cars.

[u/mazealot]

Are they gonna get the chris harris treatment ? The car rolling backwards while in gear was hilarious.

[u/Egotauron]

Are they the only ones with enough balls to call out the flaws for this car or did they get a bad one?

Edit: I knew they have balls just wanted to get your opinions on it

[u/bigbura]

80 comments at this posting and nobody mentions the square sensor in the lower grill that is canted to the car's right? Grill issues aside, all I can see in the front views is that box leaning to the right.

Did Ferrari do this on purpose, to showcase their imperfect but beautiful creation at first glance?

[u/placeholder41]

Sunday morning with a new throttle house vid is a nice start to the day.

[u/EVE_OnIine]

4:35

That screen covered in gorgeous finger oil brushstrokes on canvas, abstract art on the center dash. Worthy of the price point.

[u/shiroman99]

Throttle House does such a great job. The production value is insane on the episodes and they always try to give honest evaluations.