Ferrari Luce: The mother of all price issues

To be clear from the outset and prevent any disappointment in the digital space: the excitement caused by the Ferrari Luce on the web is not purely a question of automotive history. It is a question of contemporary storytelling.

The algorithmically fuelled snapchat on social media - this hyperventilating ripping of a Ferrari between two TikTok videos - reveals a fascinating phenomenon: a car like this has long since ceased to be a means of transport. Just like a Hollywood film about a historical event, it is a source of collective myth-making. It changes the way people talk about the brand without ever having sat in a Ferrari at all. The narrative replaces reality.

However, the true observation must begin much earlier, long before the first post. Media psychologists would probably now be measuring heart rates and arousal levels at the sight of the Glass House. They were violent swings. This is precisely where the leverage lies: the Luce shocks because it is silent. In a world dominated by digital background noise and loud indignation, this radical, sculptural calm is the greatest provocation. Ferrari denies the critics their usual noise - and the web reacts with phantom pain.

So what does it really mean to build a Ferrari without a combustion engine? This question may sound trivial at a time when electric cars have long been part of everyday life. But for a brand whose identity has been defined for decades by sound, vibration and the almost lively communication of a high-revving engine, it is fundamental. It is less technical and more philosophical in nature. "Ferrari was an idea before it was a machine," said Ferrari CEO John Elkann at the world premiere. And: "To realise this vision, we had to rethink everything. Not just what we build, but how we build it and how complexity fits together seamlessly."

Ferrari did not want a simple answer, but a consistent one: The electric is not treated as a compromise, but as empowerment. The absence of the combustion engine creates space. Space for a new architecture, for a new relationship between driver and machine, for forms that were previously unthinkable.

Ferrari chose Rome as the venue for the world premiere. And for 25 May. Seventy-nine years ago to the day, Franco Cortese won the Gran Premio di Roma with the Ferrari 125 S on the Circuit de la Caracalla. It was the first victory in the history of the Cavallino Rampante. Around 200 media representatives from all over the world travelled to the presentation of the Luce . The strictest security regulations, mobile phone cameras were taped off, entrance checks. Play it safe! As brand strategists would put it.

First the name: Luce, the light Metaphor for speed and brilliance, also as a programme. Clarity. Single-mindedness. The ability to point the way without dazzling. A prankster who thinks of the joke about the light at the end of the tunnel, which can sometimes simply be the train coming towards you.

And this is where LoveFrom comes into play. Ferrari did not develop the design of the Luce in its own Centro Stile under the direction of Flavio Manzoni, but commissioned LoveFrom - the creative collective of Sir Jony Ive and Marc Newson. Two men who don't design cars, but objects. Ive designed the design language of the iPhone, Newson watches, furniture and aeroplanes. Their work hangs in museums. It is cited in design history books.

Ferrari is implicitly saying: This Ferrari is an object in the cultural sense - a sculpture that moves. Anyone looking at it should ask themselves the same questions they ask themselves when faced with an Ive object: Why this shape? Why this material? Why this stillness in the surface? Why this price? - Stop! We take back the last question. Because anyone who asks it has understood nothing. Neither in art nor at Ferrari.

The vocabulary must be chosen accordingly. Perhaps like this: In its sculptural transcendence, the Luce manifests the dialectical suspension of the automotive paradigm - a phenomenological condensation of space, movement and material purity that places the viewer in a contemplative state of epistemic suspension. The Glass House articulates the negation of the superfluous as an affirmative gesture. LoveFrom has not designed here, but distilled.

Or simply put: the all-electric Ferrari Luce looks different than any Ferrari before. Whether it is beautiful, whether it is timelessly elegant, whether it is aesthetically pleasing, everyone should decide for themselves.

And what does the trade press say? Nothing at first. The colleague next to us at the world premiere seemed somewhat perplexed in his painstakingly put-together cocktail attire. "We've had a policy here at the company for years: we don't write about design because it's subjective." Unsurprisingly, what he has scribbled on his notepad: "Four electric motors, one per wheel. 770 kilowatts, 1047 hp. Zero to 100 in 2.5 seconds. Range of more than 530 kilometres. Over 60 new patents - from the battery to the inverter, all developed/manufactured in Maranello." Also interesting. Quite so.

Then he asks the press spokeswoman about the price.