F80 Reportedly Having Issues Selling

Aesthetics today…. 246’s weren’t always so well considered (otherwise there wouldn’t have been the strong recent-years’ appreciation). The 308 GT4 was styled very much of its day with other trendy vehicles looking similar, for example the Lotus Esprit. At which point, the old 246 would have looked quite old-fashioned. Some fantastic Maseratis and Lamborghinis adopted that styling - most of us had a poster of a Countach on our walls. Then, after a few years, the ‘wedge’ vehicles didn’t look good anymore, then they did again!

There’s no denying, the 246 is classically beautiful, especially when viewed as a classic car through 2025 eyes. But time and tastes change in every field - cars, bikes, fashion, food etc. Perhaps it shows that volume produced has an influence on values, but not entirely, appearance has an influence on values, but not entirely, engine, power and tech have an influence on values, but not entirely. There is an adage in property that three things are important - location, location, location. But it’s not actually correct. Number 1 is timing. In bad times, well-located properties still go down and in good times, badly-located properties go up. (Actually, the second isn’t location either, it’s financing, but that’s another story). Tastes always change with time, in the supercar genre, exhibit A, the F50.

 

I think it is the garage of a guy he interviewed for another video. No idea why they set up there instead of the house though.

 

So back on topic, are there F80s still available?

 

I think they probably did hide it well. I don’t think anybody goes to Ferrari, even today, thinking “it’s a toss-up between this or that job making plastic pipes…” Nothing against plastic pipes - there’s a lot of money in that! Everyone associated with the company loves the fact that the brand is so well loved. Look at Lewis, he arrives with 7 world titles, all with Mercedes-engined cars, for whom he must have a very warm place in his heart, and talks about it being a dream to drive in red. Yes, of course, he is being paid handsomely. But he doesn’t need the money.

So, even the hardest of heart and coldest of soul at Ferrari understands that they are working for a brand that embodies passion. It still has to be a business. If it is a bad business, it becomes a bad, or disappeared, brand eventually. The only justification for eschewing profit in favour of romance, is that you think the romance will bring you more profit longer term. I don’t know him but I would take a wild guess that LDM would probably be offended to hear that opinion about him is that he was not focused on profit.

 

Very curious topic ….

 

If history has taught us anything it is that sometimes cars like the 246, often regarded as the poor relation, can later be valuable because nobody cared enough to save them when they started disappearing.

A 296 is never going to be a $50,000 car - it'll have parts available for some time and people worry about the batteries - I don't, they're easy to replace/upgrade. I worry more about circuit boards and things. In 30 years I would rather have to find a new battery for a 296 than a new dash.

 

Hi, I like your channel. Sounds like you ruffled a few feathers with the F40 piece! Iconic car though, best driven with very warm tyres…

 

Oh JayEmm! I like to watch your channel too

 

Very much enjoy your channel.

 

Thanks for that. I went down the rabbit hole with modules, but they only service, they don't provide the specific sensors. The sensors will vary depending on hub design reluctor location etc. So many different variations of the same thing. Sensor length, circumference, gap etc. It's just a pulse generator, but they can have different resistance values.

The sensor I had was melted due to a brake caliper seizing up on the highway. The car actually caught fire and did some bad damage. Removing the right rear sensor does not reveal a part number or manufacturer stamp. Possible it was sticker which would be long gone.

This is obviously not my first rodeo sourcing sensors etc But going through the Lancia, Alfa, Fiat, catalog of sensors has come up dry. I'm now thinking it was sourced from an industrial application.

As far as I can gather, nobody I have contacted knows of a suitable replacement. I'm waiting on a couple of emails to be returned from overseas. Hopefully we can come up with something.

 

Perfectly said.

 

Hi buddy - love watching your channel and thoughts …Your chat re the F40 vid was good , just got sorry for you that you were in the cold with your breath vapor …. Keep up the good stuff on YouTube buddy ….

 

I'd imagine that pride and passion runs deep for nearly all employees and customers. Owners and executives may share this pride and passion and value it intrinsically. Or they may view it cynically as an asset to exploit, worth cultivating only in the interest of future profits.

I believe LdM and Agnelli were members of the first group. We can each draw our own conclusions about their successors.

This presumes that companies exist only to generate profits. This is inevitably true of most publicly-traded companies because shareholders can derive little non-economic utility from their shares.

However, it need not be true of privately held companies, whose owners may find satisfaction in non-economic pursuits (exhibit A: Yvon Chouinard). These companies must be profitable to survive, but not necessarily maximally profitable.

LdM is an excellent businessman, who ran Ferrari competently and made it very profitable. Nevertheless, I suspect that he would proudly acknowledge that he did not prioritize profit maximization above all else.

We will never know, but I believe that this was what drew Marchionne's ire, not differing views on how to maximize profitability.

 

Could take issue with American companies shipping production to China so strange saying nothing wrong with that. When I got into the Ferrari game it was because they boasted making everything in-house. I would marvel at the videos of their foundry smoking the hand-cast sand molds and pouring in their special blend molten allow. X-raying every part for flaws and one person hand-assembling that glorious NA V12. Then watching all the leather-workers hand stitching every piece of fine leather made to order only. What will Ferrari be when the engine is replaced with an electric motor? Glad I have the real deal and one from the correct era. Time marches on but we have our favorites.

 

Once the chips in the ECUs are deprecated you are SOL. There's also millions of lines of code in there who's authors could very well be deceased by the time you try to pry open the unit on your exciting journey. If you have a hybrid then also good luck with those high voltage converters. You will more than likely be forced to resto-mod it with a complete Chinese electric motor drivetrain replete with George Jetson audio track.

 

LdM is an excellent businessman, who ran Ferrari competently and made it very profitable. Nevertheless, I suspect that he would proudly acknowledge that he did not prioritize profit maximization above all else.

We will never know, but I believe that this was what drew Marchionne's ire, not differing views on how to maximize profitability.[/QUOTE]

LDM's statements in 2013 show clearly what his strategy was for Ferrari. Regardless of the high profits he achieved as chairman, LDM main aim was always to limit Ferrari's production to maintain the brand’s exclusivity. His analogy that "The Ferrari is like a beautiful woman and should be worthy of waiting and wanting." it actually matches the way some of us still look at a Ferrari. But unlike others, LDM had the humility of not considering himself the enlightened creator of this strategy and therefore added “ "I base my ideas on what I learned from Enzo Ferrari — if we produce fewer cars, we will not flood the market and it makes our most desirable used cars, too."
Something that LDM always ruled out was diversifying Ferrari's portfolio into new segments such as an SUV, four door or small cars. "I tell these customers to look at Maseratis," said di Montezemolo. "We will not deviate from our core products."

After LDM's departure, Ferrari followed a strategy contrary to the one he advocated, Marchione's vision, however it is undeniable that it generated more profits for Ferrari's shareholders. But let's not have any illusions, Ferrari is today much less exclusive than it was in 2013 as it already sells the double of cars, more than 14,000 annually. The fact that Ferrari has entered the SUV and four-door segment, which already represents around 20 percent of units sold, has somehow also distorted the brand's character.

To summarize what Ferrari currently is I just paraphrase what LDM said recently “seems to me to be a company without a leader”

 

All companies - public or private - exist to deliver customer value. And that allows the generation of profit. A company can try for profit without giving value but the wick is extremely short on that idea and companies disappear quickly, no matter who they are. Public companies necessarily have a more short-term view of profits than a family business but Ferrari has been influenced by this effect well before RACE. For example, we have a 25-year project that has been expensive, with no return, that is only now beginning to bear fruit. Only a private or family business could consider such a thing. Why? Because for us, the success of such a project could be existential over the long term so the investment is worth it. For companies like Ferrari, even under LDM, they couldn’t employ capital with no return for 25 years, it would be too damaging to their present business.

I guess we won’t agree, but I think it is over-simplistic to characterise new management as only interested in profit and previous management as laudably interested in the brand romance over profit. To me, where Ferrari is now, is a very natural extension of the trajectory that Enzo knew was needed and LDM managed to successfully introduce. When market share is collapsing, then we could have a conversation about current management only being interested in profit, simply because one of the reasons market share might collapse over time is for a lack of investment into technology for future sales - a mistake which I don’t see Ferrari currently making. I believe I can see lots of evidence that Ferrari is being managed well in terms of investing for the future - they are still investing heavily in racing, e.g. Lewis and the 499P programme, they still do better than everyone else in engaging their customer base with racing activities, they have invested in a new Maranello-based factory, they have been taking risks to develop and introduce technologies that will help them with where future legislation will take the industry and so on. This is all very expensive to do and is probably their ‘existential question’. Fail to do it, albeit expensive, and they will not remain relevant - I.e. able to ‘add value’ as I discussed at the beginning of this post, in the future. What I perceive as criticism of the current management as ‘too greedy and only care about profits’ is actually not accurate analysis in my opinion. Instead, what I think people are really complaining about is the method by which they are preparing for the future. Some would rather the future looked a lot more like a modern version of what happened in the past. So they criticise the new product portfolio and characterise the management as only caring about profits. I can understand and respect subjective differences in opinion about what is the right product direction to best grow the brand for the future, but don’t see much validity in arguing that a management team that is making huge investments all over the place has an unhealthy view of what is needed to generate properly-earned profits.

The difference in opinion about current and future product direction is understandable and has been debated at length so I won’t add more to it. Save to say that I don’t necessarily like everything that is happening but I do like a lot of it so I remain a customer (because I see the value). Those who don’t like the products won’t remain a customer because they don’t see the value. There is absolutely nothing controversial about that, it’s the law of the jungle and why arguments are pointless. We are going to plainly see whose opinion about product direction is correct for Ferrari over coming years. Any of us might be wrong or right, who knows. So long as people only buy what they want, that still shouldn’t be too much of a problem for those who follow the current journey, except for the inevitable residual challenges.

As for volume growth, 14,000? That is hardly huge growth. How about still-successful Porsche, from Ferrari-style volumes to well over 200,000. Ferrari is still very, very exclusive.

I don’t know the context behind LDM’s comment about ‘a company without a leader’ so it’s hard to know why he said that. He may also legitimately disagree about the product direction or what the investment funds have been given to - all still fully legitimate in the context of this post. My guess would be that he may feel the pricing strategy is out-of-step with where the economy is heading (so poor anticipation, which is poor leadership), or that he thinks some products should be different (he famously didn’t like fixed wings which have now returned). Or…more controversially, perhaps he sees that a lower-priced, smaller car, using the already developed V6, would be a better product direction because it would give much higher volume without complicating the higher-level product supply and demand equation. I seem to remember he considered a ‘new Dino’ during his time? There is actually quite a lot of business logic to that idea.

 

Perhaps I should have said, nothing wrong with outsourcing an iPhone - China does that better than anyone so it seems appropriate for the iPhone and customers don’t seem to mind. As for Ferrari, I fully agree, better to have production linked to its history directly. I have the same experience as a young lad, being wow-ed by production processes, the engineering, the sights, sounds and smells. I was privileged to be very close to those things from about age 7 through my father. That all stays in the blood!

 

Ah, I just read again MDEL’s post about LDM not liking small cars. The point about his strategy being to keep exclusivity, does anyone think that still isn’t the case? I’ve waited over two years for our PuroSangue and it’s still not here. We were one of the first contacted to place an order. It may be an SUV but it’s still pretty exclusive.

 

I am one of the few here who was able to talk to the LCDM, certainly also to Mr Massini, so I can tell you that his position was very clear.
First of all, he was very attached to Enzo's heritage and the pride of the Italian cultural heritage that Ferrari embodied. He was keen to prioritise the best national talent to work there.
Secondly, he kept a personal connection with his customers and did not hesitate to go deep into the Italian countryside to have lunch at their home, with them.
Thirdly, he had a clear vision of the cars and engines that were to represent and make up the range.
Fourth, it did not seek to obtain indescent margins at the expense of quality.
Fifthly, he didn't want to exceed 10,000 cars per year, in any case.
Sixth, he opposed the IPO because he knew the logic and the long-term outcome.
Eight, he didn't want either the PS or the EV
Ninth, she had a

 

What is happening today is the opposite of the points mentioned above !
The exclusivity may remain in the production figures, in a way, but certainly not in the car range, because with the exception of the 12C and the Icona, any other brand could have done the rest... The V6 TT Hybrid is within the reach of any manufacturer involved...

 

Saw an Instagram story from a German collector with a lovely collection, won't name him here, stating that he had cancelled his F80. So I guess there might be a slot available at Ferrari Munich.

 

If he posted on instagram I guess he’s not worried about privacy so please post if you wouldn’t mind.

 

Given that the overwhelming majority of us and those who write here and give their opinion about Ferraris and Ferrari, including myself, although they really love the brand, have never had the privilege of talking to LDM. Therefore, I am very grateful and thank you for your testimony, which confirms to a large extent what we've learned about the LDM's thinking through the press.

There is something that for LDM seemed to be very clear, and that is that Ferrari can not loose its heritage and core identity. Unfortunately, in my humble opinion, Ferrari has been losing both. The heritage, is lost every time a new model with futuristic avant-garde design is not understood by a part of the brand's faithful customers. The core identity, that without a doubt, starts eroding from the moment when Ferrari decided to add to its range a completely electric car which will be sold under the name Ferrari.

 

That's odd you haven't received your SUV. There has already been 2 of them crashed and written off up here in Toronto Canada.