The California arrives in KL

NAZA Italia launched the Ferrari California at its official Malaysian debut at the company's centre in Petaling Jaya on Thursday.

The car, first unveiled at last year's Paris Motor Show, is Ferrari's take at an all-rounder, a supercar you can putter or bomb along in every day.

Essentially, the car is a coupe and a convertible, depending on how you use the retractable folding hard top: in either a two-seater version with a traditional rear bench, or in a 2+ version which has the rear bench equipped with two seats for very small passengers.

There's also a seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox and a new direct-injection 4.3L mid-front mounted V8, a first in a Ferrari road-car. The block develops 460bhp at 7,750rpm and a maximum 485Nm of torque at 5,000rpm, 75 per cent of which is available at 2,250rpm.

The new V8 features direct fuel injection and variable timing on both intake and exhaust, and the engine note was also carefully developed, with particular attention lavished on sound perception in the cabin both with the top up and down.

Elsewhere, the car, with an all-aluminium chassis and bodyshell, gets a new suspension system (traditional double wishbones at the front and a new multilink at the rear), "diamond-finish" 19" five-spoke aluminium alloy wheels as standard, a newly evolved F1-Trac traction control system and Brembo brakes with CCM (carbon ceramic material) discs as standard.

The Pininfarina design is a real looker, especially with the top down and there are some definite homage cues to its spiritual predecessor from which it takes its name, the 250 GT California from 1957. It's aerodynamic too, offering a drag coefficient value of 0.32 in coupe form.

The car has been doing exceptionally well globally since its launch, with a long waiting list in many countries (for example, 16 months in Japan), and it is already looking every bit the winner here; of the allocation of 10 cars here for 2009, seven have already been snapped up.

The California rolls in at a starting price of RM1.7 million ($691,843), though you can take it to the limit, depending on level of customisation.

The Star/ANN