Ferrari Luce (EV)

First electric Ferrari Luce sells for $40 million

Enzo Ferrari once famously quipped that he sold engines and threw the rest of the car in for free. For well over seven decades, that intoxicating, high-rpm combustion crescendo was the untouchable soul of Maranello. But when the Italian marque revealed the Luce - a quad-motor, five-seat electric super-tourer penned in partnership with LoveFrom - the traditionalists suffered a collective existential crisis.

The internet critics scoffed, sharpened their pitchforks and declared the end of Italian motoring as we know it. But in a stroke of automotive irony that only Monterey Car Week could deliver, the same Luce dismissed as silent heresy, detonated the auction record books.

Under the warm California sunshine at RM Sotheby's, the first-ever production example - officially cataloged as "Chassis 0" with VIN ZFF21BUA8T0338000 - crossed the block for an astonishing €34 million.

The pre-sale estimate conservatively predicted roughly €0.94 million, but bidders blew past it by nearly forty times, eclipsing the previous new-car benchmark set by a bespoke Daytona SP3 by a cool €12 million margin. In a single drop of the gavel, Maranello's most controversial creation became the single most expensive new car ever sold at auction.

www.arenaev.com

First electric Ferrari Luce sells for $40 million

Ferrari's debut electric vehicle silenced skeptics at Monterey Car Week as the bespoke "Chassis 0" Luce smashed auction records with a $40 million charity sale.
www.arenaev.com www.arenaev.com

rmsothebys.com

2026 Ferrari Luce 'Tailor Made' | The Monterey Auction 2026 | RM Sotheby's

2026 Ferrari Luce 'Tailor Made' for sale at RM Sotheby's The Monterey Auction
rmsothebys.com
 
Meet the man who bought a Ferrari Luce for $40m

An electric Ferrari upstaged California's big car event. We look at the man who bought it

“We were discussing it amongst ourselves,” Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna tells us. “And there were different opinions. Personally, I thought this car might achieve $5m, but in the end it exceeded our expectations.”

To put it mildly. TG.com was present for RM Sotheby’s keenly anticipated Saturday evening Monterey auction, and it was genuinely standing room only as the ex-Nick Mason McLaren F1 GTR hammered down for a record-breaking $34.65m. We wandered by the white Ferrari Luce as we left the venue, confident that we’d witnessed the evening’s big showbiz moment.

Oops. Luce 'Chassis 0' was sold a few hours later for $40m, a sum of money that sent the internet – as we know, no fan of the electric Ferrari – into a form of rage yet to be formally identified by psychologists. Even the non-enraged wondered if Ferrari was guilty of trying to ‘save face’ by engineering an elaborate publicity stunt, underpinned by the fact that every cent of the sum raised would be going to charity. Others assumed that the buyer was engaged in a very public tax write-off.

I didn’t get to verify that with Herbie Wertheim when I met him briefly in the foyer of Pebble Beach’s main lodge 12 hours later. But I was happy to shake the man’s hand, and he certainly seemed to be in full possession of his faculties. And a rather nice red hat. Mere yards away on this most gilded of fairways were some of the finest Ferraris in the world, including a handful of 250 GTOs, a 275 GTB/4 NART Spider, and my personal favourite, a 250 GT Sperimentale Coupe.

 
Opinion: Ferrari’s Luce backlash was self inflicted

Say what you want about the car, it's the control over the message that baffles...

Ferrari. Everywhere. Literally everywhere. From the media platforms; from mainstream newsfeeds to tabloid and broadsheet papers and even playful jibes from other global brands such as Toblerone and KitKat. And less playful ones from former CEOs. Maybe Ferrari took advice from Lewis Hamilton’s girlfriend when devising and launching the Luce, because its new EV truly broke the internet. Not to mention the hearts of millions...

Ferrari’s first pure EV model was bound to be controversial, of course. But nobody could have predicted the immediate fallout. Nor that it would have almost nothing to do with the EV powertrain.

Instead, the vast majority were appalled/sickened/infuriated by the exterior design. I’ve seen some really compelling defences of the way the Luce looks – phrases like ‘complex surfacing’ and ‘stunning structural accuracy’ – and more intellectual, high minded reasons why we should take time to ‘digest and understand’ the Luce.

Ferrari knows its traditional customers won’t buy the Luce, so it had to appeal to a new audience. People who will buy into the vision of Jony Ive and Marc Newson. Hmmm… maybe. But you can bet Ferrari will be tapping up its very best customers and promising them access to all the upcoming cool stuff if they stump up £450k, right?

 
FiestaST said:
Opinion: Ferrari’s Luce backlash was self inflicted

Say what you want about the car, it's the control over the message that baffles...

Ferrari. Everywhere. Literally everywhere. From the media platforms; from mainstream newsfeeds to tabloid and broadsheet papers and even playful jibes from other global brands such as Toblerone and KitKat. And less playful ones from former CEOs. Maybe Ferrari took advice from Lewis Hamilton’s girlfriend when devising and launching the Luce, because its new EV truly broke the internet. Not to mention the hearts of millions...

Ferrari’s first pure EV model was bound to be controversial, of course. But nobody could have predicted the immediate fallout. Nor that it would have almost nothing to do with the EV powertrain.

Instead, the vast majority were appalled/sickened/infuriated by the exterior design. I’ve seen some really compelling defences of the way the Luce looks – phrases like ‘complex surfacing’ and ‘stunning structural accuracy’ – and more intellectual, high minded reasons why we should take time to ‘digest and understand’ the Luce.

Ferrari knows its traditional customers won’t buy the Luce, so it had to appeal to a new audience. People who will buy into the vision of Jony Ive and Marc Newson. Hmmm… maybe. But you can bet Ferrari will be tapping up its very best customers and promising them access to all the upcoming cool stuff if they stump up £450k, right?

Click to expand...
99% of people upset will never buy a Ferrari. Those who have the means will simply skip this one if it's not to their liking. I think what's lost is that it's a new platform which they can make look how they like in the future and that the intent from the beginning was always attracting non-traditional customers and new markets to the brand.
 
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