Ferrari Portofino M

The Story

The Portofino M is the quiet workhorse at the bottom of Ferrari’s range — the most attainable way into the marque’s modern V8 convertible world. Its lineage runs through Maranello’s ‘entry GT’ tradition: the front-engined, retractable-hardtop 2+2 California T gave way in 2017 to the Portofino — a sharper, prettier reinvention penned by the Ferrari Styling Centre under Flavio Manzoni and named for the Italian Riviera village. In 2020 Ferrari revised it into the Portofino M, the ‘M’ standing for Modificata — its badge for a meaningfully evolved model (the same logic behind the 575M and 599 GTO).

What makes the M more than a mid-cycle nip-and-tuck is what it borrowed from above. The 3.9L F154 BH twin-turbo V8 was retuned to 612 hp, and behind it sat a new 8-speed dual-clutch gearbox — the same architecture Magna co-developed for the SF90 Stradale — replacing the old 7-speed. More tellingly, Ferrari fitted a five-position manettino with a Race setting, the first time the brand’s hardcore drive mode appeared on one of its GT Spider models. The Portofino M stopped being merely the easy Ferrari and started being a genuinely quick one.

It matters because it is the front door to Ferrari ownership. It shares its exact engine code — F154 BH — with the Roma, the car that defines Ferrari’s ‘nuova dolce vita’ family, and it was the brand’s best-selling GT: folding-hardtop usability, 2+2 practicality, a sub-3.5-second 0–62, and a price that undercut the F8 Spider by tens of thousands.