Ferrari Luce: Electric Sedan for 2027

Ferrari's recently announced Luce electric sedan (Wikipedia entry here) has generated a lot of controversy.  Criticism centers on the idea that its styling is bland, not at all Ferrari-like.  Some observers thought the car could ruin the brand's reputation.

This post is my initial take on the Luce (Italian for "light," though there are some other connotations).

I need to state that I've never been much of a Ferrari fan.  I respect the brand.  But like other exotic, expensive, high-performance brands, I can't seem to relate to it.  My favorite Ferrari models from a styling standpoint are almost entirely from the 1950s.

Perhaps that might make my analysis more objective than that from a Ferrari true believer.  Well, I hope so, though I too have biases.

One complaint regarding Luce styling is that the designers,  Jony Ive and Marc Newsome, are basically industrial designers lacking automobile design experience.  Newsome did design the odd, toy-like 1999 Ford 021C concept car, but that's all, aside from the Luce.  Ive is best known for his work at Apple.  This lack of experience does not guarantee failure, though designs by industry outsiders have tended to be unsatisfactory.

Luce styling follows the general electric vehicle (EV) theme characterized by simple forms lacking sculpting and decorative brightwork.  Nothing intrinsically wrong with that, given the styling fashion in recent decades for complicated details on wind tunnel formed basic shapes.

One complaint (that I share) is that Ferraris should not be EVs.  Ferrari, at its core, is V-12.

Another deviation from the Ferrari norm is that the Luce is a four-door, four-seat sedan.  That in itself potentially means that its design could not be Ferrari-like because Ferrari has been a sedan-free brand.  As it happened, Ferrari did start building four-door, four-seat cars in 2023.  The model is called the Purosangue (Italian for "pureblood").  Its Wikipedia entry is here.

Ferrari.com's Purosangue page stated (as of June, 2026):

"The Ferrari Purosangue is the first ever four-door, four-seater car in Ferrari’s history, but models with two rear seats have played a significant role in the company’s strategy since the very beginning.  Now, in the culmination of 75 years of leading-edge research, Ferrari has created a unique car and the encapsulation of the Prancing Horse’s DNA, where performance, driving pleasure and comfort coexist in perfect harmony.  And that’s why this new model was called Ferrari Purosangue – Italian for thoroughbred."

So a brief comparison with the Luce follows at the end of the Gallery below, where images are via Ferrari.

Gallery

EVs often seem odd because they lack the radiator-grille car-face mouth required by conventionally powered cars.  Here, the black areas above and below the front bumper strike band mimic conventional air intakes.  There's little inherently wrong with the design aside from not evoking Ferrari's image.  The basic fault is that the shape is too soft.  Were the sculpting enhanced even moderately, the design would be improved, its themes (such as they are) enhanced.

I'm guessing that the black thing abaft of the front wheel opening is an opening to exhaust hot air from the front wheel brake.  Rear styling is simple.  I notice no chrome trim whatsoever.

Simple, flowing shapes.  But even the red paint and yellow fender crest do not make this a convincing Ferrari.  Put some Auto Union linked rings at the front, and this could be a nice, sporty Audi EV.

As mentioned, sedans are traditionally foreign to Ferrari, which might be a subtle factor in the criticism leveled against the design -- basic proportions are not of the sports car or GT sort.  It's hard to see here, but the aft cutline of the rear side door drops vertically from a point slightly abaft of the leading edge of the C-pillar.

2023 Ferrari Purosangue
Here is Ferrari's other 4-door, 4-seat model.  Its wheelbase is only 2.2 inches (57 mm) longer than the Luce's, so side-view comparisons are fair.  I could easily be wrong, but the Luce appears to be based on a basic body structure similar to the Purosangue's.  Note the side window upper profile, the B-pillars.  Clearly major proportional differences, due to the V-12 motor up front on the Purosangue, creating an aggressive, Ferrari-like stance.  But the need to economize tooling costs might have led to the noted similarities.

1948 Ferrari 166 Coupés and Berlinettas

Many observers, me included, consider Italian car styling from the late 1940s through much of the 1950s to be a kind of design golden age.  Today's post presents some designs from early in that era.  All are based on the Ferrari 166 (Wikipedia entry here).

Details are in the captions below.

Gallery

1948 Ferrari 166 Inter Coupé by Stabilimenti Farina, Giovanni Michelotti designer
I wrote about this and other Stabilimenti Farina designs for Ferrari 166s here.  Lacking on this design is the Ferrari oval grille with egg-crate bars introduced by Carrozzeria Touring on the 166 Barchetta.

Ferraris had V-12 motors in those days, justifying a long hood.  The side view is pleasing, very classic postwar Italian styling.

1947 Cisitalia 202 Berlinetta by Pinin Farina
But the design strikes me as being highly derivative of the classic (honored in a 1951 exhibit at New York's Museum of Modern Art) Cisitalia 202, often cited as setting the tone for Italian design.  The basic Cisitalia design was by Giovanni Savonuzzi, productionized by Pinin Farina.  Cisitalias had small Fiat motors, so the car was small and the hood not as long as the Ferrari's.  Derivative items on the latter include the aft roof profile, the fender design, and the side window theme.  Stabiliment Farina also built some Cisitalias to the Pinin Farina design, so the firm might have been quite familiar with it when the Ferrari was styled.  The hood on the Ferrari is higher and shaped differently, so maybe that was much of Michelotti's contribution.

Unlike the Cisitalia, the Ferrari has a trunk lid.  The tail light/reflector ensemble is awkward.

1948 Ferrari 166 MM Panoramica by Zagato, Luigi Rapi designer - photos via carrozzieri-italiani.com
The lower body is in the spirit of Touring's Barchetta design, including a variation of the grille.

Where the design fails is the side windows that curve up onto the top of the roof.  Zagato built a number of cars with this unfortunate feature that I discussed here.

The car is something of a hatchback -- note the cutlines near the backlight window.  All things considered, the passenger compartment greenhouse is too tall relative to the lower, Barchetta-influenced lower body.

1948 Ferrari 166 Inter Berlinetta by Touring, Federico Formenti designer
Early postwar, Touring made many cars based on the Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 platform.  A common Touring feature there was sculpted character lines on both front and rear fenders.  That feature is seen here too.

The greenhouse's rear profile seems a little awkward, but that is because Barchettas often had back seats requiring passenger headroom, whereas Coupes did not.  That said, this car had only a bench in back that might be used as a seat briefly.

The backlight window is large for its time.  I think the design would be improved if it was a bit narrower and less high.

Ferrari 166 MM Barchetta Walkaround

Model 166 MM (Mille Miglia) was Ferrari's earliest car to see more than token production.  Some background is here, though slightly buried.

What is noteworthy from a styling perspective is the Barchetta version by Carrozzeria Touring, a design that set the image of Ferraris for years to come.  This was largely in the form of the grille -- a modified oval frame with eggcrate bars over the opening.

Images below are of a 1950 Ferrari 166 MM Barchetta by Touring.  Those showing a blue-dark green car are via Ferrari unless noted otherwise.   Photos of a red car are via Bonhams Auctions.  The black and white racing photo is via RM Sotheby's Auctions.

Gallery

The dark paint colors and shiny surfaces show off the design's form in stronger fashion than in the images of the red car below.  The grille on this car is eggcrate, but with chromed horizontal bars dominating.

The main body rises above the fenderline, front and rear.

A side character line drapes across wheel openings, fading away at the rear.

Photo via supercars.net.  The interior seems rather fancy for a car capable of Mille Miglia competition: something more industrial might be expected.

Dashboard and cockpit.  The Barchetta is a roadster, but I see no sign of side curtains for weather protection.

Now for a set a walkaround images.  This car has the classic Ferrari grille.

No front bumper to interfere with body-shape purity.

The fenderline is not far above the wheel openings.

No rear bumper, either.

The plaque above the trunk handle is Touring's logotype.

Tail lights are mounted on the trunk lid, not the fenders or other rear-end sheet metal.

Nice, pleasingly trim design on a 95-inch (2420 mm) wheelbase.

Not a classic, standout design, but one that strikes me as being very appropriate for its time.

The men in the car provide a sense of scale -- those Barchettas were small cars.  Photo taken at the Coppa della Toscana race, 1951.

1970 Ferrari 512S Modulo Concept

Around 1970, there appeared some concept cars that were extremely low and featured wedge-shape fronts.   Aside perhaps for racing purposes, those configurations had little practicality in the real motoring world.   I consider those designs being explorations of extreme cases -- something worth testing.  And for the sponsors and builders, those concept cars generated a lot a welcomed publicity.

Today's subject is the 1970 Ferrari 512S Modulo (brief Wikipedia entry here).  It was built by Pininfarina and styled by the firm's Paolo Martin.

Most of the images below appear to be via Pininfarina and/or Ferrari, though a few might be from other sources, as the Modulo was eventually sold by Pininfarina.

Gallery

The Modulo was painted black for the 1970 Geneva auto show.

Shortly later, colors were reversed.  The car appears to be highly streamlined, though I wonder if the design was thoroughly tested in a wind tunnel.  That's because the front lacks an air dam and seems like it might be subject to lift.

The engine is placed between the passenger compartment and the rear axle line.  Note the partly exposed upper part of the rear tire, this in part due to rear wheels being larger than the front wheels.

This frontal view indicates wedging was also applied to the car's sides as well as the front.

All-open view.

Publicity photo: the car seems to be painted silver here.

All-open again.  A publicity photo showing a woman at the wheel.

Same tall lady, here providing a sense of scale to the extremely low Modulo.  (The passenger compartment "door" is open.)

1970-Vintage Concept Cars with Wedge-Shape Front Ends

Around 1970, several Italian-designed concept cars appeared featuring wedge-shaped front ends.  They also were low: a few extremely so.  Some will be featured in later posts here, but for now, a brief introduction.

In chronological order, the cars are: 1968 Alfa Romeo Carabo by Bertone, Marcello Gandini designer; 1969 Ferrari 512 S Berlinetta Speciale by Pininfarina, Paolo Martin designer; 1970 Ferrari Modulo by Bertone; 1970 Lancia Stratos Zero by Bertone; 1970 Porsche Tapiro by Italdesign; and 1972 Maserati Boomerang by Italdesign, the famed Giogetto Giargio being Italidesign's founder and chief designer.  Gandini was responsible for all the Bertone designs shown here.

All of these cars were of the mid-engine configuration, where the motor was located behind the passenger compartment and ahead of the rear axle line.  An engine mounted at the front would be too tall to allow for the frontal wedge shape.

Images below are mostly publicity photos from the car companies or coachbuilders.

Gallery

1968 Alfa Romeo Carabo by Bertone
The first important design of this type.

1969 Ferrari 512 S Berlinetta Speciale by Pininfarina
Like the car above and the two shown below, rear wheels are larger than front wheels.

1970 Ferrari Modulo by Bertone
The colors were reversed not long after this photo was taken.

1970 Lancia Stratos Zero by Bertone - RM Sotheby's auction photo
Perhaps the least practical of the lot.

1972 Porsche Tapiro by Italdesign
Based on the production VW-Porsche 914/6.

1972 Maserati Boomerang by Italdesign - Bonhams auction photo
An evolution of the Tapiro.

2023 Ferrari Purosangue Sedan

The 2023 Purosangue 4-door sedan is the first Ferrari of that body type (Wikipedia entry here).  Apparently the name is that of the Purosangue Orientale, an Italian horse breed, a kind of gesture to Ferrari's prancing horse symbolism..  The term "purosangue" can be translated as "pure blood" or even "purebred."   Not to mention the ancient Bugatti marketing slogan Le pur-sang des automobiles and the recent use of Pur Sang as the name of a Bugatti Veyron model.

I see from the link that it was styled in-house under the direction of Flavio Manzoni, a man of considerable experience.  And I controversially assert that this design from the Centro Stile Ferrari is better than much of the Ferrari work by Pininfarina, formerly its major design source.

Below are some publicity photos of the Purosangue.

Gallery

The face is fairly clean by today's Rococo standards.  However, the curve linking the headlight housings falls into cliché territory.

The car has an aggressive stance, but that is reasonable, considering its motor cranks out 715 horsepower.  Note the continuation of the above-the-grille sweep onto the body side -- justification for the cliché.

The hot-air outlets by the after edges of the hood are functional, without ornamentation, and blend with body sculpting.  The bold rear fender bulge implies the power focused there.  Rear end shaping is suggestive of SUVs by Maserati, Jaguar, and Alfa Romeo, though the Purosangue is essentially a sedan.

Note the hood, long by today's standards.  I like long hoods, and this one is justified because the motor is a V-12.

An interesting feature is the door hinging, the after door attached to the C-pillar.  That arrangement was common in America for many years, but phased out at the end of the 1940s.  Given the "suicide door" label applied to aft-hinged car doors, I wonder if there was a strong engineering reason for that feature here.

There is one late American example of such door hinging -- on the classic 1961 Lincoln Continental.  It probably didn't diminish it sales potential much, given how attractive the design was.

Want to Look Sporty? Chop the Greenhouse

"Greenhouse" is a styling term referring to the part of a car's passenger compartment above the beltline where the windshield and other windows are.

Typically, the greenhouse is fairly tall, comprising more than a third of total body height.  This sort of proportion tends to work against any "sportiness" that stylists might wish to impart to a design.

An alternative is to reduce that proportion.  The price paid might be cramped headroom for passengers and reduced outside visibility for the driver.

Below are examples to serve as food for your thoughts.

Gallery

1953 Pegaso Z 102 Berinetta by Touring
This is an example of an expensive sporting car by a major Italian coachbuilder.  Its tall greenhouse proportions are fairly typical of Italian 1950s golden age styling.

1963 Chevrolet Corvette Sting Ray
General Motors' sports car also had a comparatively tall greenhouse.

1967 Chevrolet Camaro RS Z28 - Mecum Auction photo
So did the later sporty Camaro.

1931 Voisin C22
Now for examples of short greenhouses.  This Voisin had an underslung chassis and low lower body.  Its greenhouse proportion is low, adding to the racy appearance.

1935 Voisin C28 Aérosport - RM Sotheby's photo
This later Voisin features a more normal lower body height, but the short greenhouse imparts sportiness.

1952 Ferrari 340 Mexico by Vignale
Unlike the Pegaso, this Italian body has a low greenhouse.  Perhaps that's because it's an actual race car.

1952 Hudson Hornet
The famous-in-their-day "step down" Hudson sedans had racy looks due to shaping as well as greenhouse proportions.

2005 Chrysler 300C
Lower bodies were rather brick-shaped, but the low greenhouse counteracted that impression.  I owned one, and can assure you that the windshield was too low for easily viewing close-by stoplights.

2016 Chevrolet Camaro Convertible
I was in Hawaii recently (early 2022) and was struck by the racy, sporty look of the plentiful Mustang and Camaro rental convertibles I saw.  Blunt lower bodies are common nowadays thanks to rules by European bureaucrats.  But the extreme windshield rake and very short greenhouse oddly combine to enhance an aggressive, sporty appearance.

2016 Chevrolet Camaro Coupe
The same can be said for the fixed-top version.