“These customers have everything, but here they are like everyone else: I saw the same light in their eyes as in my son’s when he watches his favorite team.” The “here” referred to by Pietro Virgolin, head of global Product marketing at Ferrari refers to the Centro Stile, where the Italian brand’s cars are designed. The modern and sculptural building is located within the functional factory complex that Enzo Ferrari opened in 1943 in Maranello, a rather inconspicuous city of less than 20,000 inhabitants, half an hour from Modena, where billionaires from all over the world travel to pay attention to every little detail to configure your cars.
Even in luxury there are classes and customization is the icing on the cake of the most exclusive automotive sector. A trend that only real Ferraristi have access to, people who are willing to wait even more months to spend even more tens, even hundreds of thousands of euros than it already costs to buy a normal Ferrari, so that their Ferrari doesn’t looks more like everyone else. At Ferrari, these very special cars (we’ve run out of superlatives) are among the ones that increase profits the most: in its most recent quarterly results, the company increased its revenue by 24% year-on-year (despite only increasing deliveries by 9%). increased), primarily due to the top-of-the-range models and “the continued appeal of customization,” which accounted for 18% of car and parts sales.
A selection of fabrics, colors and other elements in Ferrari’s bespoke workshop.James Rajotte
The magic of these numbers is created in the design center’s studio, a kind of tailoring shop for cars. An entire wall acts as a color pattern for the body: lipstick red, Monte Carlo bronze, Ingrid gray… According to legend, it is so called because Roberto Rossellini inspired it by the eyes of his wife Ingrid Bergman. The three-layer version of one of these paints costs an additional 24,000 euros. There are also fabric chains for upholstery – from classic leather to technological polymer fibers – that can be combined with threads of thousands of shades for the seams, shields of various types, more and less attractive steering wheels, seats of different sizes and belts to choose from … Endless combinations.
A Ferrari 296GTB and a Roma in Maranello.James Rajotte
And if it’s not there, you can ask. A green for the body, identical to the emerald of a family jewel? Seats upholstered in cashmere? Headrests with the customer’s name? For about 2,000 euros they will embroider it for you… “Would you like us to recreate the print on the scarf you wear around your neck?” Done,” says Luca Zanetti, Ferrari sales manager, pointing to the colorful silk pattern on mine Scarf. “We are here to make our customers’ fantasy come true: there are those who want to replicate the look of their yacht. A lady brought a piece of wood from the forest surrounding her ancestors’ castle to use a similar texture inside the vehicle…”
Zanetti explains that personalization “is in the company’s DNA” and lists its stages. First, the catalog for standard Ferraris, as standard as a brand can be that sold 13,221 units last year and only hand-assembles about 60 cars a day. Their prices start at 200,000 euros for the Ferrari Roma and reach two million euros for the Ferrari Daytona SP3. There is a wide range of colors and details to choose from when purchasing. Anyone can play on the official website; And if you can afford it, you can order it from the dealer. The next level, called “Special Equipment,” includes non-catalog requests and must already be configured in one of the brand’s three ateliers: Maranello (“which is still the holy grail where customers prefer to go,” says Zanetti) ; Shanghai, which opened in 2014 in search of emerging markets, and New York, of course, opened on Park Avenue in 2019.
Flavio Manzoni, chief designer. James Rajotte
Ultra-luxury doesn’t just work at Ferrari. According to a report by the consulting firm McKensey, the general automotive market is stagnating, while the market for luxury cars (from 75,000 euros) will grow by 8 to 14% annually until 2026. Cars over 450,000 euros will grow the most. “The main reason is the continued increase in the number of ultra-rich people, those with assets of more than $30 million, and super-rich people whose assets range from $1 million to $30 million.” The report adds that sales from North America and Europe are in the Middle East and Asia, particularly China, where there were no ultra-rich in 2000, to an expected 130,000 in 2026.
The Ferrari KC23 model presides over the tailor-made workshop in Maranello. It is a “one-off” of which only one car was produced: James Rajotte
Finally, at the forefront of Ferrari’s offer is tailor-made personalization: an experience in which a team of three people – a salesperson, a designer (who acts as an aesthetic consultant) and a graphic designer – accompanies the buyer in the virtual realization of his vision a meeting lasting several hours, sometimes extending to a meal if necessary. Often the buyer comes with his family or friends and the visit includes a walk between the warehouses where the V6, V8 or V12 engines are assembled, the wind tunnel designed by the architect Renzo Piano or the “Cars” room. Cars”, in which the bodies are suspended by huge clamps before workers manually place cables, wheels, seats, chassis in the company Rosso Corsa… Only buyers, sponsors or suppliers of the brand can get into these ships and with a sticker Look inside the camera cover of your mobile phone. Tourists have to be content with walking through the factory’s exterior without getting off a panoramic bus.
Custom cars make up a small portion of all units produced by the brand (“a low single-digit percentage,” the filing says), but their profit margin is high. The surcharge depends heavily on what is ordered. “If you want a non-automotive material, such as cashmere, you need to do a durability test; If you need to create a color that is not industrially produced or research a historical decoration, it will be more expensive… Every case is different,” explains Zanetti. At Ferrari they don’t like to talk about prices, but for once they admit: a tailor-made individualization of the brand’s cheapest model costs no less than 50,000 euros more. And from there.
The heart of the Ferrari factory in Maranello.James Rajotte
But it’s not even just about money: “We try not to set too many guidelines; Our marketing doesn’t do marketing. “There are things that are more interesting when we don’t talk about them much,” says the manager. The secret, of course, is a strategy for selling exclusivity. The waiting list for the Tailor Made program, which launched in 2011, is entered by a salesperson, who typically suggests it to customers who already own other Ferraris (although this is not mandatory) as a reward for their loyalty. There are also “penalties”: according to another legend of the brand, there is a blacklist that you will be added to if you immediately resell the car to speculate or commit some mischief, such as a ridiculous paint job.
“Tailor Made customers are Ferrari fans, so their tastes usually match ours…” says Silvia Cavallaro, head of color and upholstery. “Although that doesn’t always happen,” he adds with a very discreet smile. He doesn’t lose his temper when you test his patience by ordering the most eccentric color combinations imaginable for the elegant body of a Purosangue, the first Ferrari with four doors. “My job is to help the client make decisions, and sometimes that requires a certain diplomacy,” says Cavallaro as he elegantly suggests a more sensible color combination to make it seem like your idea. What if everything fails and the customer wants your very expensive grotesque? “Then I call Flavio and he plays the bad policeman,” says Silvia.
Silvia Cavallaro, responsible for color and upholstery. James Rajotte
Flavio is Flavio Manzoni, chief designer of the house since 2010, author of emblematic models such as LaFerrari (the company’s first hybrid), F12berlinetta, Monza SP1, Roma, SF90 Stradale… He has won all the industry awards, several times. His favorite? “If you strive for perfection, the best work is always the next one, as Enzo said.” Before Ferrari he designed for Lancia (the Ypsilon) and for Seat in Barcelona (the Tango), so his Spanish is almost perfect, although he says , it was rusty. Manzoni drives “an old Ferrari 308 GTS, Tom Sellecks in the Magnum PI series”. He doesn’t have a mustache, but he’s the rock star of the place.
And the bad cop when the time comes: “It must be a very difficult customer to take me out of a meeting,” says the designer, “but I usually convince him.” With undisputed charisma and with a key argument: “Design is not Jewelry, sometimes people confuse personalization with adding, adding, adding, adding, and the biggest danger is over-design.” A trained architect (he designed the design center where we are located in 2018), he explains that the essence of a car is the ” “The connection between its beauty and its function”. “We open our design center to the customer, but we also have a responsibility to respect Ferrari’s aesthetic principles,” he says. For example, I would never build a pink car. “Oh no, not even with a cartoon,” Manzoni says, folding the fingers of one hand in the archetypal Italian gesture. The worst thing they asked of you? A customer bought a Monza (1.5 million euros) that has a very long, retro-inspired hood that features a horizontal stripe that breaks up the elongation, and he wanted to place it vertically. “I managed to convince him because the design is explainable, it is a metalanguage,” says Manzoni. Is that really the worst? Manzoni laughs: “No. Once they asked us about a lavender colored car with some curved trim lines… “A horror!”
Aside from coming over to clean up when things get really bad (literally), Manzoni isn’t usually directly involved with cars for private individuals. With one exception, he is dedicated to designing the brand’s official models in complete secrecy.
Choice of fabric and paint colors in the Tailor Made workshop.James Rajotte
The triple fate of individualization: Once or twice a year does Ferrari create a one-off, a unique body for a mega-special buyer? “It’s not a sales program, but a program of engagement,” says Pietro Virgolin, “it’s not a product, it’s a journey that the customer goes on with us: He sits down with Flavio and his team and together they completely redesign it “Exterior of the vehicle” (No individualization intervenes in the interior of the cars for reasons of homologation and safety, the chassis of an existing model is always used).
“In individual cases it is not enough to arrive with a checkbook, the model must be approved by the board, it becomes part of our history,” says Virgolin. Of course, you also need a checkbook; a car like this doesn’t cost less than several million euros, although no one gives specific figures.
The buyer is always someone with a previous relationship with the company, a collector or a driver, perhaps an amateur who has a long history as a customer and several Ferraris in the garage. The process takes years and begins with a meeting with Manzoni with an idea. For example, the Taiwanese buyer of the SP-8 (a roofless structure mounted on an F8 Spider, the model of which can be seen in the Ferrari Museum in Maranello) wanted a two-tone car. “As a result of this simple concept, we designed a profile that emphasizes duality,” explains Manzoni, “it is not a car painted in two colors, it is designed that way.” For the KC-23 – whose original model the atelier Presiding – the owner was looking for something futuristic and different, so Manzoni recommended building it based on a 488 GT3, a racing car exempt from road traffic regulations. The final appearance is “monolithic,” says the designer in front of the drop of mercury in the shape of a machine of the future: the tinted windshield is in the same silver as the body. “In this program, the client becomes another creative,” says Manzoni, “he has a dream, my job is to listen to him and his job is to trust me.” Chemistry is essential. Sometimes you have to say no, like the customer who wanted to build the longest Ferrari in history. For others, everything is harmonious: “The owner of the SP38 Deborah is an enthusiastic art collector and we got along well, the car is an abstract work of art that works aerodynamically,” explains Manzoni, who made inspired cuts in the sheet metal on the back. in those of Lucio Fontana’s torn canvases.
And how does it feel on the other hand? What kind of childish illusion is this of someone who can afford such luxuries? The Hong Kong businessman, who purchased the one-off car called P80/C in 2019 (a “homage to the spirit of innovation and discovery of racing cars from the 1950s and 1960s”), replies anonymously via email: “It was an incredible four-year trip and my best memories are the close working relationships with the different areas of the company, from design to engineering, aerodynamics, manufacturing… It was a joint effort, it is these friendships that I value today and that I am also proud to have one To be able to contribute to the history books.”