losing the soul

I am not a fan a hybrid Ferrari feels to me like losing the shift gate !

 

Does make it harder to walk...

 

OP - Dan of Krell fame ?

 

I wonder how many people thought Ferrari lost their soul when they brought out the Laf???

As you probably know the automotive world is changing.... It's either Ferrari adapts to those changes or they go home.
I have no issues with hybrids. Yes there are some slight inconveniences, most of which can be easily resolved by driving the damn cars

 

250 GT/E = Ferrari losing their way
Ferrari sold to Fiat! (Ferrari is done)
Mid Engine? WTF?
V6 Dino? Ferrari has gone off a cliff
Bertone? oh my!
V8s?!? A Ferrari is only a V12.
Automatic in the 365 (oh Lord)
Fuel Injection?!? Catalytic converters? (the end is nigh!)
Enzo is dead - Ferrari is over.
Traction Control - airbags - abs? - Ferrari is not the same.
Paddles...no more stick shift (I quit Ferrari)
Bye bye Pininfarina? (Ferrari is finished)
Ferrari is public now. (game over)
Turbo (oh no!)
AWD? Hatchback? the end is here!
SUV?! - done
Hybrid. - never will be good again.
.
100%Electric and Automation. (your turn to fill in the blank)

What is the best Ferrari?
"The next one we build"
-Enzo Ferrari

Not saying the OPs comments are necessarily wrong, but the one constant with Ferrari is change. (as is the world) - the beautiful thing however, is if one waxes nostalgic, most folks I know here can get the 'older cars' post Enzo Era/non-Limited cars relatively easily to fill that need.

 

I've said this many times but I feel Ferrari under Luca started really making Ferrari a "luxury brand" instead of a sports car maker. He viewed Ferrari no differently than Chanel or Bulgari. He's making exclusive merchandise for the wealthy who buy it because they like "the brand".

Luca is the one who added "badges" to the cars -- at a price. Before they were only for racing cars made by the factory. But hey, its good "branding" -- and another $2 grand for $10 of parts.

All the cars since have had more creature comforts, more customizing for "personalization" (aka ego stroking from it's owner) and of course a bump in performance with a bump in price.

Sales are awesome so you have to say he was right on that level. But what was lost? We will never really know because Ferrari today is not the same Ferrari of 1970.

The pity is that Dino, if continued, could have been that alternative lower priced bare bones sports car maker while Ferrari made luxury GT's.

Let's face it... if we didn't keep buying them they wouldn't keep making them this way. No one forces us to buy them. We want them.

 

Just had to ‘like’ such a good post!

 

Way too harsh for me. If I wanted a true luxury car I would buy a Bentley or a Rolls even. Ferrari make luxury sports cars. Even the cars they themselves call GTs are very sporting. My Lusso concedes a lot in terms of comfort to my wife’s Panamera but gains a lot in sportiness. As for my Speciale and forthcoming Pista, well there is not much luxury there. Yes, Luca turned the company into a money-making machine, but thank goodness he did, Ferrari need profit to continue making even better cars instead of lurching from one unreliable but pretty dog to another.

 

LDM was not at the factory in 1970.
And he was made to leave in October 2014. Since his departure the company has changed dramatically. I miss him.

Marcel Massini

 

They noticed it’s better to direct profit towards the company’s accounts instead of customers pockets, who buy cars for speculation purposes mainly.

 

That's not what I said. What I said is that Ferrari of 1970 is not the Ferrari of today.

LDM made Ferrari profitable. He made the products "better". But he did it always with the idea of making Ferrari a brand that could sell anything.

I'm not going to get into an argument with you. I have too much respect for your knowledge and dedication to Ferrari. But LDM did change Ferrari -- and you can argue it was for better or for worse and both would be correct.

You could say the people after him made it worse. Well, probably true. But that does not mean that LDM didn't also set the direction that others continued to move in and perhaps even accelerate.

 

Hiya Mayor, I generally agree with you. However, I argue the 'racing' spirit is very alive and well at Ferrari.

Just ridiculously expensive. The Corse Clienti experience is legit if you're willing to pay to play.

Seeing a CUSTOMER drive and OWN Schumacher's 2004 F1 going down the straights was spine tingling to say the least last month. Or various FXXs cars racing is as legit and real as it gets. I mean racing comes down to one thing and one thing only.

Speed.

McLaren can say all they want, but do they offer customers to race their old F1 cars, the true pinnacle of automotive performance?

Doesn't get more 'real racing' for the laymen than that or the FXX-K Evos

Yes, most folks probably just want a Ferrari to drive to their local cars and coffee at < 100 mph. But that's been the case for years now, I don't blame Ferrari for capitalizing on that fact today as it did when it sold John Lennon, Elvis, Sammy Davis Jr, and Elton John their cars.
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Its the question of SOUL though that was brought up. You could argue these new cars are much better -- faster, more reliable, beautiful, and certainly more luxurious. Less exclusive? Well yes that too -- but that's the price of profitability and popularity.

But have they lost their soul in that journey? That is what is being asked here. Not is it "better or worse".

As I said, the sales are pretty awesome so they must be doing something right. People like the products. But has something been lost in the process? I think so.

 

Agree with all of what you are saying.
But LDM was against going public.
And since that day the company has changed dramatically (yes, I do own stock but really just for sentimental reasons).

Marcel Massini

 

I don't mean to diminish what the OP is saying. I get it. The older cars just provide such a different 'visceral' experience. The sound, vibrations, feel of the cabin/leather, the smell; hell you can even 'taste' the petrol coming out of the exhaust on some! I have not even mentioned the looks!

But Ferrari needs to adapt to the changing world as they always have. I've actually always seen Ferrari as much as a 'technology' company as it is a car company. Tech companies need to reinvent themselves all the time or die on the vine. I'm just happy the older cars are here for all of us to buy and enjoy, one can find the car that fits their personality and needs best.

 

I think most people age out of caring about new Ferraris past a certain point that they think of as a golden age. I'm not interested in a hybrid Ferrari, for example, no matter how amazing they are. I also want a manual in my mid engine V8, but paddles are okay for a GT to me. But I like ABS, traction control, and airbags. So the 360/430 is my favorite V8 platform, but I could live with a 458, and the 612 or FF would be my ideal V12 GT, but a Lusso would work too. I get being turned on by the latest and greatest, but I'm 61 now and really don't care about too many things anymore. Hybrid V8 and V6 Ferraris do not push any of my buttons, as impressive as they are.

 

How do you define it though? I owned a McLaren Spider which was a great car. When I added the Speciale to my garage the Mac was sold within three months. There was just something wonderful about the Speciale that I connected with, such that the Mac held significantly less interest for me. I don’t think it was about the car just being nicer looking, more raw, naturally aspirated. It was something else, hard to define. All the elements joining together to deliver a motoring experience that was more than the sum of it’s already excellent parts. Is that soul? I’m eagerly awaiting my 812 and Pista Spider. Will I find that same something ‘extra’ in those cars. I think I will.

I also owned a few Astons and Porsches. Both brands whose products definitely have soul - perhaps you can define it as a personality in the way it delivers its driving experience over and above the statistics. I got that with both of them. But against Ferrari? No, Astons are beautiful and brawny but don’t communicate in handling terms like a Ferrari, a Porsche is a wonderful thing, with great personality - especially the 911s. But it is still not like a Ferrari.

I obviously can’t say that picking my Speciale up from the factory I felt as buzzed as old photographs of people like Peter Sellers picking up his Dino in the very same place (only because how could anyone ever know?) But what I can say is that I had one unbelievable and wonderful day doing it. In motoring terms that was as good as it gets. I think that is to do with soul. I will never own a 250GTO or 275GTB new. But I spend a lot of time and money on ordering, specing, buying and owning Ferraris. More than any other car and perhaps more than is rational and reasonable. Why? Perhaps Ferraris do still have soul, otherwise why do a thousand men and women spend time writing about all this on fchat, looking at YouTube, talking to their dealers when they undoubtedly have other very significant things to do. Why does it still matter? I think it matters because they still have that soul we talk about.

My children are from the millennial generation, much discussed by previous generations. They are often irritated to be labelled and discussed as though they are the only generation to have weaknesses, with their massive strengths ignored. Younger Ferraris may be like the millennials. They prioritise different things to older generations but don’t for a moment tell them they don’t have a soul. They have passion and ability for things that I don’t always understand. They are no less worthy, just different. They are also the future and we had better embrace them because the world will work their way. Apologies for the philosophy but it is a genuinely interesting and slightly difficult question, isn’t it?

 

I don't define soul but I know it when I see it.

 

Kinda like pornography......

 

Ferrari: loosing its soul since 1947.

 

As to the question of "losing the soul", I think the only thing that could make that happen would be to have the company start to mass produce them to the point of them being as common as seeing a 911 or a corvette. When "car people" pass by a Ferrari on the street and not turn their heads--that's the day I think the soul is gone.

 

one thing that hasn't changed is the constant increase of power though, we are at a point now where there is a lot of purity which has been taken out of driving because the incessant need for every car to be more powerful than the last to drive sales and the resulting electronic aids needed to stop the average customer from dying.

 

This is an excellent point.

 

+100

 

I thought a lot about what you said. I think the catch 22 is this. Agreed 100%, that for driving pleasure you don't necessarily need all the crazy power, electronic doohickeys, and aero wizardry. I'm a disciple of Colin Chapman. I love the purposefully built cars Ariel/Radical/Exige type. Branding wise, Ferrari now has 'bloated' cars to tick every bleeding edge box that those plunking money demand so they can reinforce their bonifides at the cars and coffee or owners meet.

Also many Ferrari owners are weekend drivers, the technology does allow you to post superhero like times without having to be Lewis Hamilton.

That's what makes the older Ferrari awesome. You can find a model that's cheaper and most importantly ticks *your* boxes. Through depreciation, you can sometimes get tremendous value out of it.

Not everyone wants to beat their personal Nurburgring time or have to have the latest and greatest.