Should Ferrari Listen?

While sitting on the toilet, I asked myself, do biplanes still exist? Record players? Analog watches? Yes. As long as money can be made, build it and they will come. I ain’t worried. As in all history if you got the money, somebody has the product. Illegal you say? Lawyers are the true “hell of a drug.” Some unscrupulous folks figured that out long ago with our litigious culture. Even if you are 100% in the right, doesn’t mean you can’t sill lose even after winning in court.

Today, Ferrari doesn’t need to offer Manual, and for EVs, it is yet to be seen.

They are doing just fine with Hybrid, which was an anathema to folks here just 10 years ago. Today, the 296 is some sort of revelation. F1 ain’t going back to pure ICE anytime soon, Enzo was F1 first, 250 second. I mean, if you hate electrification, trash the FIA, don’t bash the player. It would be like bashing Stephen Curry knowing the math of 3 points shots.

These whingers are the same losers that say the SF90 is milquetoast or janky. ROFL.

 

Comparing manuals to the overall car market is a false equivalency.
Porche Gt3 manual take-up in usa over 50%
Mustang GT stick shift takeup?
Honda CTR massive wait lists, plus premium, 100% manual.

 

Imo we will manual ferraris.
As the world esp europe moves to ev's their paper numbers will make mincemeat of any Ice car on road.
Ferrari will make ev's, but they will mine the classic catalogue too.
This a market for the retroclassic ice manual ferrari will appear. With the eu accepting sustainable liquid fuels going forwards and with jet aviation drivign the development of such fuels Ice is here to stay.
Maybe at first ferrai will ignore the classic line, but we already see mototechnique doing the equivalent of singer to a 308.
That's a big and growing market ferrai wont ignore. Ducati sells more nakeds than their suberbikes, Triumph wouldn't exist without their retro classic line.
Ferrari wants to grow.

 

Dont know for all prches.
But a Gt3 is +505 manual in USA. Cayman GT4 was manual only and effectively doubled Cayman sales.
Lets just say that within the true sportscar niche, manual are very popular. less so in Europe.

 

The Honda Civic Type R was apparently 1.7 percent of total Civic production last year. I don’t know what percentage of 911s were GT3s, but half of that number is still a niche. I love GT3s, but as a portion of the market, these cars are no more than a rounding error.

I agree with Paulchua’s post above: There will always be biplanes, mechanical watches, etc. if someone is willing to pay a premium. The question is whether succeeding generations will actually care about having a clutch pedal and gear lever instead of paddles behind the wheel.

If EVs get the infrastructure they need, we’ve already seen what a 1,000+ hp Taycan GT does to the quarter mile. The Ferraris and Porsches we grew up with will be irrelevant to younger affluent buyers, and gearboxes of any sort will be the subject of nostalgia rather than debate.

 

Emira is closer, maybe.

 

i think were talkig at cross purposes. Ferrari does not make pedestrian commuter cars or minivans so comparing to all hoinds civics is a false equivalency. the real question si this. Where a sportscar is offered in stick and auto/paddles, what percentage are stick.
In the case of the Gt3 its +50% Cayman GT4 was all stick and doubled cayman sales. A GT3 is interesting because its a really high revving engine, so in theory idealy suited to paddles. the Honda CTR is manual only and backordered to kingdom come. An informal survey of M2 BVMWS on car gurus indicates +70% stick. Mustang GT and Dark horse nearly 30% stick.

The point Im trying to make is in the high performance sportscar segment its 30-70% stick in USA.

That ferrai does not make a stick, and sells all it can, probably says more about who buys a ferrari than automotive enthusiasts and sportscar drivers in general.
i have long maintained that stunning as cars like a 296 are, theyre really mostly luxury handbags for older men, than bought as true performance cars. The "authentic brand" these days is price, simply because they still offer true focused drivers cars in a number of flavors(as well as many Gt variants), they probably dot have to do it, and Im not sure what 2000 Gt3s does for the bottom line when they produce 50K 911s per year. But a Gt3 underpins the whole 911 promise.
The customer vase is somewhat clear, just go to any track day or PCA event.

Most porche 911s are to me the same thing as a rolex, a useable measure of success image thing, but they still bother to make the real thing to. Ferrari long ago abandoned its core customer.
To the extent they would wish to grow sales of more than suvs and underpin their ":brand" with some core product, a smaller lighter more visceral car is in order.
Imo when evs become the thing, such a car is inevitable in the ferrai ice space. They could probably do a 196 now, basicaly the 296 sans electrics and with a stick.
It would be slower and clheaper than a 296, so the had bag crowd wound feel they had a small dick by not buying one and they could sell 2000 per year easily.

In any event as you and Paul say, others are doing it already from Singer to the Totem Gt, it would be nice if Ferrari made one for us.

 

And they can do so easily and inexpensively by doing a 296 variant, the 196 similar car sans electrics and with a stick., If porche makes $$ on 2000 Gt3s which have a bespoke engine an transition not to mention suspension etc, basically a 911 tub with bespoke bits, so can ferrari.

The 288 was a production run of 280 cars, ferrai didnt think they could eve sell the mandated 200 of such a raw car. It put ferrai back on the map and begat the f40 which they chose to only make 1500 of.

 

Ferrari sells suvs and Gt Romas. the 911 is what allows porche to sell rebadged audi suvs for a premium, and yes that profit provides the engineering capacity to make more 911s. But Ill bet porche makes a gret profit on every 911.

To me its an easy step and relatively inexpensive one to take existing components and repackage them as porche does with the GT 4 Gt4rs and Gt3 and 3Rs of the regular cayman and 911. Ferari already has the platforms and powerplants. If masser can do the MC 20, Ferrari can do a 196.

 

Happily!

 

I've heard this argument before and it never made sense to me.

Porsche sells SUVs because it's a wildly profitable way to cash in on their brand. But I'm sure their sports car arm is quite profitable. It may account for a fraction of Porsche's overall profits, but I'd be shocked if it wouldn't be a solid business on its own.

So if you start with the premise that Porsche exists to build great sports cars, SUVs aren't necessary for the GT4 to exist.

I think you can make an argument that the GT4 is necessary to maintain Porsche's brand power and thus sustain high margins on their SUVs. But that would suggest that the GT4 is necessary to sell SUVs, not the other way around.

The same is true of Ferrari. The PS exists to enrich shareholders, not to finance pet projects or R&D for the sports cars. That business was thriving on its own.

Anyway, all this isn't to say that Porsche and Ferrari shouldn't make SUVs. I have my own opinions on that. But they're only opinions,and they're moot anyway given management's duty to shareholders.

I just don't buy the "necessary evil" arguments.

 

Maybe. Questions are (a) what does it mean they couldn't do (opportunity cost) and (b) what would it mean for their brand value?

I'd love to find out! But I don't think we will.

The good news (for me at least) is that I still think they're making some amazing cars.

 

We all know Ferrari sells every car it makes, and the exclusivity is a large part of the allure, but what is the ceiling? There are only so many people interested in a toy car. The PS is the only way to increase sales while keeping that allure since it taps into a new market. And it is more cost effective than a new Dino since the profit margin at 500k is much better than 200k.

I agree Porsche would have been successful just selling sports cars, but would have just remained a niche brand for same reason. It needed an suv to reach a broad market, but still needs gt3 to maintain its image. They are mutually dependent

 

I still disagree. The "need" to tap into this bigger, non-toy car market is about maximizing profits. If you start with the premise that the companies exist to build great sports cars - not to maximize profits - they wouldn't need this broader market.

Hence, not mutually dependant. The SUVs need the sports cars to maintain the brand. But the sports cars don't need the SUVs.

Of course we know the companies today exist to maximize profit. And fortunately, this isn't necessarily at odds with building great sports cars, since they're both still doing it.

I just don't buy the premise that we couldn't have the sports cars without the SUVs!

 

Yes, I should have said: mutually dependent to maximize profit

 

the answer to this is simple.
ferrari does not care what you think, and they are doing just fine. the majority of Ferrari buyers are poseurs, who can barely drive anyway. so the maximum amount of driver aids and automation make them feel like they are sort of competent.
if you want a manual ferrari, there are many to choose from, the affordable ones just may not be the poseurs choice, and you wont be featured on Instagram

 

Mostly agree with that.
But from a European POV, I would add that the US obsession for manual gearboxes sometimes also seems to be a poseur stance - as if being able to "master a manual gearbox" would be an indication of being able to drive properly. Which is, considered from this side of the Atlantic, a rather laughable statement.

 

While the 911 is the most successful sportscar of all times (units sold, time produced, races won), Porsche was financially struggling multiple times in their history. Typically the company stayed afloat by selling less prestigous models, e.g. the 924, the 944 and the Boxster. The permanent solution to their operative financial problems was the Cayenne though.

The entire industry is facing severe challenges to implement 3 new technologies at the same time. The development costs for this are insane and the more sold units you can dsitribute them on, the better. Without the SUVs Porsche would be either dead, marked for certain death or just a brand name that was being abused by some other company for marketing purposes.

 

Now there's someone that sounds like they know what they're talking about.

 

if Porsche just kept making sports cars alone it likely would have been able to survive, but likely not flourish. Lotus skated by independently all those years (until recently). Mclaren is still doing it. For Porsche it worked out great, the high volume suvs allowed them to be in the enviable space where they have hedged on multiple fronts including alternative fuels, and are still able to put out a variety of amazing cars at multiple price points. For Maserati not so much, the ghibli and suv have just tarnished the brand.

don’t think Ferrari could do the same since their core value is exclusivity and they can’t risk that by selling too many suvs