Ferrari 360 Coupé (99-04) - Review

There's plenty of head and elbow room in the 360M, which makes it a practical proposition for everyday driving. All 360Ms have leather seats, air conditioning as standard, while sat-nav and fitted luggage were popular options with new buyers. The Challenge Stradale trades leather for Alcantara-covered sports seats and has a far noisier cabin as much of the sound insulation has been stripped away to save weight. In gentle driving, the standard car is relatively hushed, though some road and wind noise is noticeable at motorway speeds. Use the engine’s full potential and the noise is an addictive harmony of high pitched yowling.

The 360M has a cabin that’s reasonably easy to get in and out of plus there’s also a small, square luggage compartment in the nose and fitted luggage makes the most of this space. There’s some storage behind the seats, but other than the glovebox there’s nowhere to stow small items safely. The 360 is not as easy to park as a Porsche 911 due to limited rear visibility and the width of the Ferrari can make tight manoeuvres daunting.

Ferrari banished its old-style straight arms and bent knees driving position once and for all with the 360M. Even the large front wheelarches don’t intrude much into the driver’s footwell, so the 360 has a good driving position. There’s not as much adjustment in the steering as you'd expect, but drivers of all sizes should find the 360 accommodating and the instruments are well within the driver’s line of sight. The cabin is tastefully styled and only some of the more outlandish colour options spoil the classy restraint of the interior. Forward and side vision are good, but it suffers the usual supercar niggle of restricted rearward visibility due to the slope of the rear pillars.