It should have sparked debate due to the absence of the engine and, therefore, the classic roar of Modenese supercars. Instead, the Ferrari Luce is being mocked behind its back (there is even a photomontage circulating on social media that merges it with the Fiat Multipla) because of its appearance.
FEW LIGHTS AND MANY SHADOWS FOR FERRARI
Too little affinity with the other cars of the Prancing Horse stable. So much so that Luca Cordero di Montezemolo went as far as begging management to remove the historic logo from the bodywork if Maranello really wants to bring it to market (release is scheduled for the end of the year).
All this while another motorsport enthusiast with a long F1 career, Flavio Briatore, after a jab at Stellantis where he asks where Italian cars have gone when driving around Italy, laughs saying that a car with that shape will at least never be copied by the Chinese.
The credit or rather the blame for this unprecedented media buzz mostly made up of jeers and mockery is to be shared between two foreign designers, one British and the other Australian: Jony Ive and Marc Newson. They were the ones who decided the shapes and forms of the Ferrari Luce.
WHO IS JONY IVE
Sir Jony Ive had so far linked his name and artistic flair not to cars but to Apple devices. Also for this reason, many consider the Ferrari Luce a sort of spiritual heir to that Apple Car that Cupertino would have loved to make but never realized, scared by the electric car bubble that ended up overwhelming many already established manufacturers.
Ive worked closely with Steve Jobs since the early ’90s, dealing with flagship devices like the iPhone and the Apple Watch. Other devices that became cult classics for their aesthetics, such as the iPad, iPod, and Mac, also bear his signature.
THE AMERICAN COLLECTIVE LOVEFROM
A pencil capable of shaping the success of the bitten Apple, making it a style icon and contributing to its return to the top after the stormy years that seemed to mark its decline. At one point, Apple had merged so much with the British designer’s flair that it was decided to entrust him, by then Chief Design Officer of Cupertino, even with the appearance of the Apple Park.
That was at least until 2019, when Jony Ive shook the company by leaving Apple to found LoveFrom, an artistic collective based in San Francisco that for the first two years curiously decided to work without even having a website, which was opened at the end of the pandemic. Now the site exists but is still of dubious usefulness.
FROM CHAIRS TO CARS
Sir Ive’s project is joined by Marc Newson, an industrial designer especially known for his chairs, although as seen on his social media he also deals with many other household objects (many photos range from clothes hangers to binoculars). However, like Ive, Newson also seems completely inexperienced in the automotive sector. And so does their collective, even though the site, as mentioned, is so strange that it’s hard to get an idea of the projects carried out so far.
THE CHALLENGE OF A FOUR-DOOR, FIVE-SEATER FERRARI
What is certain is that Ferrari decided to entrust LoveFrom with its first electric car, resulting – judging by social media comments – in angering both Italian fans who consider its shape too un-Italian and foreign fans, who appreciated Maranello’s cars for their Italian style, now diluted by heavy interventions from the San Francisco studio. Newson himself admits on Esquire that the challenges during development were numerous: “If someone tells you a Ferrari has to have four doors and five seats, that’s not exactly the easiest starting point.”
THE IDYLLIC RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LOVEFROM AND FERRARI
The Australian artist speaks of the relationship with Maranello as a virtuous collaboration: “It was free of tension. Ferrari understood very early that there was an advantage in looking outside their comfort zone, outside the automotive field, and even outside their own design department.”
“It was,” the Australian creative further explained, “a process of mutual education: them teaching us and us teaching them the different ways we approach and solve problems as industrial designers. Although we have cross-disciplinary experience from furniture to aviation, we can indeed say that our background is not automotive.”
MARKETS ARE UNEASY TOO
As we write these lines, the stock tries to bounce back after yesterday’s 8.37% drop on the stock market. Precisely because of the Ferrari Luce. Analysts and investors do not only focus on the aesthetic aspect, which could obviously slow sales, but express doubts especially about the list price of 550,000 euros. Too much even for a supercar.
LIGHT YEARS FROM THE USUAL FERRARI
The impression is that, despite electric cars forcing manufacturers to face higher costs, Ferrari did not want to give up performance to silence any criticism linked to nostalgia for combustion engines at the outset, even at the cost of excessively inflating prices.
For the rest, there are several signs suggesting that this is almost a spin-off or an isolated experiment. Starting with the color: no “Ferrari red,” because the model presented to the public is blue, while a white example was brought to President Sergio Mattarella. From design to price to colors, in short, Ferrari Luce seems like an experiment, not the forerunner of an electric future.
