So here’s what happened at Monterey Car Week: the very first production Ferrari Luce ever built, Chassis 0, went across the block at RM Sotheby’s for $40 million. Not euros. Dollars. Ferrari’s own pre-sale estimate had it at “in excess of $1.1 million.”
The Ferrari Luce auction price of $40 million makes Chassis 0 the most expensive electric vehicle ever sold at auction, and one of the highest prices ever paid for a modern production car. RM Sotheby’s offered it as Lot 345 on Saturday, August 15, without reserve, and Ferrari waived the buyer’s premium on top of that. Every dollar goes to the Ferrari Foundation, the automaker’s 501(c)(3) charity that funds educational programs. (Full lot listing from RM Sotheby’s here.)
Photo: RM Sotheby’s
Quick catch-up since we covered the Luce when it broke cover: it’s Ferrari’s first electric car, and its first real four-door, five-seat model, all-wheel drive, styled with input from Jony Ive and Marc Newson’s LoveFrom studio. Regular versions start around €550,000 before options, with customer deliveries expected late this year. Chassis 0 was never going to be a regular customer’s car.
This particular example went through Ferrari’s Tailor Made program, and it shows. The exterior wears a custom Madreperla semi-gloss finish mixed specifically for this one chassis, a pigment that shifts from green to violet depending on how the light hits it. Inside is Le Mans metallic leather in Perla, with the secondary trim finished in Grigio Corvara instead of the usual black, a first for the program. Even the brake calipers and wheels were built one-off for this single car.
Photo: RM Sotheby’s
I’ll say the thing everybody in that room was probably thinking: no car is worth $40 million, and it’s not really about the car. It’s about a first-of-its-kind chassis plate, a charity that needed a headline, and a bidder who could write that check without blinking. The real story isn’t the price tag, it’s what Ferrari just proved about its own name. The company put its first EV under the hammer and it made headlines for exactly the reason Ferrari wanted.
Photo: RM Sotheby’s
Bottom line: the $40 million Ferrari Luce auction price doesn’t tell you a thing about whether the Luce is actually a good car, it tells you Ferrari’s badge is still worth more than anything with a battery or an engine bolted behind it. The rest of us will find out if the Luce earns its keep once the regular ones start hitting dealer lots later this year.
Would you want a Luce as a daily driver, or is this one better off staying a museum piece for whoever wrote that check? Drop your take in the comments.