It's time to dig those nickels out of the seat cushions. Sell the stamp collection, too. Break the kids' piggy bank, have a garage sale, and get that rookie season Nolan Ryan card on eBay-pronto. Take it all and buy big in this weekend's lottery, because you'll want to get your deposit in on Ferrari's new ragtop as quickly as you can. It's every bit as dazzling as the 360 Modena coupe. And the top goes down.
Displayed for the first time at the Geneva Motor Show in March and coming to our shores around the first of the year, the 360 Spider is a predestined classic. It, of course, replaces the much-loved F355 Spider, sold here from 1995 through the rest of this year. Most important is that this new Spider is not just a well-done chop job or conversion; the 360's all-alloy skin and chassis platform were designed from scratch with an eye toward being an open-air model. Raising and lowering the top is a one-touch deal: Press the button, and the top unlatches, lowers, and covers itself in a well-choreographed display of excellent engineering.
Stylistically, the 360 Spider resembles its closed stablemate everywhere but the top area and rear deck. Its "shoulders" loosely resemble the fairing on an old Jag D-Type racer, though they don't line up directly behind the headrests. Instead, they're an aspect of the design that keeps the rear deck from appearing too flat; they also serve as the outboard mounting points for the two asymmetrical rollover hoops. The design, as with all current Ferraris, is the masterwork of Pininfarina, and the 360 Spider bodies will be built at the Scaglietti coachworks facility in Modena, Italy.
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