It’s never a good sign when your former chairman explains that he has to bite his tongue about your much-anticipated major product launch.
Former Ferrari president and chairman Luca di Montezemolo was so appalled by the Luce, the Italian luxury carmaker’s first-ever electric vehicle, on Monday in Rome that he told a local TV news crew he hesitated to express his opinion.
“If I say what I think, I’d cause harm to Ferrari,” said Montezemolo in Italian, shaking his head in a clip that has gone viral. “We’re risking the destruction of a myth.” The former chairman, who was pushed out of the company in 2014, doubled down on the shade, suggesting that the company should remove its prancing horse logo from the car and remarking: “This is surely a car that at least the Chinese won’t copy.”
It would be one thing if this were just one man’s opinion. But the look of the four-door, five-seat Luce, a long-awaited addition to Ferrari’s roster unveiled with great pomp in Rome, has been mocked by countless Ferrari fans, analysts, and investors.
There have been memes online making fun of its glass-roof design, suggesting that it looks like a vacuum cleaner or a camper, or pointing out the similarities to the Nissan Leaf, an EV with a price tag well below the 550,000 euros ($640,000) a Luce will set you back. One commenter said the car looks like an Apple mouse on wheels.
