RUNNINGS
BY HARRY KIRSBAUM
You
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANGIE BAAN
FEEL. THE NEED. OR SPEED.
Too had you're stuck in traffic at a stoplight. At least the bright
yellow Maserati you're test driving complements the orange cones.
Besides, it gives you a chance to peruse the financial pages to
see if you can afford the $105,000 price tag.
Dan Cable, general manager of West Bloomfield's Cauley
Ferrari-Maserati, has been kind/insane enough to give you the keys
to a 2004 Spyder, with black leather interior, matching yellow
piping and stitching, and other accents made of carbon fiber.
Driving the Spyder on a sunshine-filled day in August, you're
no longer a Jewish News staff writer, you're the only European jet-
setter on the block.
You're in a two-seater, so forget taking junior to day care, unless
you want to drag the kid's car seat by a rope from the roll bar.
The soft-top convertible raises and lowers in 30 seconds, or the
time it takes for a red light to change, and the rumble of the
4.2-liter, 385-horsepower V-8 engine lets the guy in the next lane
know that a drag race with you would be foolish.
The Spyder can hit zero to 60 in 4.9 seconds.
With a top speed of 176 mph, this car can hit 91 mph
in third gear and 58 mph in reverse, for God's sake.
You're driving an automobile with a Formula One
type gearshift, called the "Cambiocorsa." No clutch,
just two paddles behind the steering wheel, so you
never have to take your hands off the wheel.
Buttons on the console adjust to "Sport" mode —
the suspension tightens and the car shifts more
aggressively; or a fully "Automatic" mode, which
makes the car boring to drive.
You don't buy a car like this to drive it like a four-
door sedan. It doesn't shift smoothly in fully automat-
ic, and it doesn't like to be driven slowly.
As you gun the engine at the green light, you look
at the car next to you and say in perfect Eye-talian,
"Chow, baby."
The open road awaits.
Special thanks to Cauley Ferrari-Maserati for allowing
Platinum to cruise Orchard Lake Road in a 2004 Spyder