Comment by rpozarickij
7 hours ago
I wonder whether the mere-exposure effect [0] could also be at play here.
For me, the first reaction to the Ferrari Luce was utter shock, but after looking at it again several hours later I'm starting to see some of its exterior elements differently (although my brain finds it hard to call the car "beautiful" in the same way as some of the other recent Ferrari models).
It looks like a decision was made to depart from the "modern"-looking Ferraris, but the direction of that departure seems to be very different from what the competitors are doing and what the general public is looking for visually in such a car (but it's worth keeping in mind that members of the general public aren't really customers of this car).
Just to clarify: I'm not saying the car is ugly, it's a good looking design.
But it's not a Ferrari design, it dropped almost all of the brands' identity and design language in favor of becoming a more "uniform sportscar design".
To me personally this is quite on-brand for Jony Ive's past work, where the exterior design of the product is diluted to the "least-offending version of its kind", a vessel to the high-quality interior experience which is focused to "excite the user".
In the mobile phone space this was disruptive, because (accidentally) it created the "normalized mobile computing platform" needed to transform the industry into a Smartphone industry.
But I'd say the sports car industry is different, I don't see a benefit in having the "most normalized sports car"...
Exactly - it's a "fine sedan" for Kia, Honda, even Apple to release (I'm sure someone has put an Apple logo on it already).
But it doesn't scream "Ferrari" nor does it scream "look at me I'm driving a half-million euro car".