Passion vs Profit — Has Ferrari Lost Its Way?

This is painful to write. Really painful. Like reversing your Ferrari into a bollard painful. Like seeing someone fit a Liberty Walk widebody kit to a 458 Speciale painful. But I have to say it — Ferrari might have lost its way.

And I say this as someone who loves Ferrari. Really loves Ferrari. I’m not just some armchair critic who’s never driven one. I’ve owned them. I’ve toured Europe in them. I’ve spent countless hours behind the wheel of some of Maranello’s finest, marvelling at the noise, the drama, the sheer event of it all. Ferrari is more than just a car company — it’s the reason we all fell in love with cars in the first place. But I can’t shake the feeling that something’s changed, and not in the way people like to complain that “everything was better in the old days” while clutching their chest and remembering when a Mars Bar was 10p. No, this is different. Something has fundamentally shifted at Ferrari, and I think I know where it started.

The Pininfarina Problem

For decades, Ferrari’s cars were designed by Pininfarina, and they were beautiful. They weren’t just fast, they were art. Cars like the 288 GTO, the F40, the 355, the 458 Speciale — each one was a masterpiece. Pininfarina had a way of making a Ferrari look exactly how a Ferrari should look — aggressive but elegant, purposeful yet breathtaking.

And then Ferrari, in their infinite wisdom, decided they could do it better themselves, which brings us neatly to the Roma, a car that looks like an Aston Martin if you squinted really hard after five pints. Then there’s the SF90, which is undeniably fast but somehow manages to be as exciting as an iPad on wheels. The 296 GTB, which Ferrari insists is not trying to be a McLaren Artura (even though it is). And then, the Purosangue, a car that Ferrari spent years swearing they would never build, because Enzo Ferrari once said, “We will never build an SUV". So instead, they built a very tall Ferrari that absolutely is an SUV but that they refuse to call an SUV.

The moment Ferrari cut ties with Pininfarina, the magic started to fade, and with it, something far more worrying began to happen.

The Value Crash

Once upon a time, Ferraris were investment gold. You bought one, you tucked it away in a garage, and a few years later, you sold it for more than you paid. It was practically a rule. But today? Ferraris are depreciating faster than ever. The SF90? Worth less than a well-specced 458 Speciale. The 296 GTB? Dropping like a stone. The Roma? You’d be lucky to get a decent chunk of your money back. Even the Purosangue, Ferrari’s so-called 'game-changer', is already losing value. And it’s not just the standard cars. Even the special versions, the ones that used to be immune from depreciation, the ones that collectors would sell their kidneys to get hold of, are starting to hover dangerously close to list price. This is unprecedented.

It used to be that if Ferrari tapped you on the shoulder and said, “Would you like to buy a LaFerrari?”, you’d bite their hand off. Not just because the car was amazing, but because you knew you could probably sell it for twice what you paid the moment you took delivery.

But now? Enter the F80.

The F80 — A Testament to How Things Have Changed

The F80 should be the next great Ferrari hypercar. The successor to the LaFerrari. The one that every billionaire playboy and supercar collector has been waiting for. But there’s a problem. When Ferrari offered the Enzo, people would have fought in the streets to get one. When they offered the LaFerrari, they had people falling over themselves to sign up. But now? Now, some people who have been given the opportunity to buy an F80 are actually stopping to think about it.

That is not normal. That is like being offered a winning lottery ticket and asking if the font on the numbers is correct. It’s as though we’ve gone from, “I can’t believe I’m lucky enough to pay to get on this list”, to “I can’t believe how much I have to pay just to be on this list”. The romance has been replaced with spreadsheets and calculations. People aren’t rushing to buy because they love the cars, they’re hesitating because they’re not sure if it’s a good investment. And this is where the real problem lies.

The IPO Effect

Everything seemed to change when Ferrari went public. Once upon a time, Ferrari was a slightly mad Italian company that built cars for enthusiasts, but then came the stock market floatation, and suddenly, Ferrari wasn’t being run like a car company anymore — it was being run like a business. And businesses need to keep their shareholders happy, which means more models, more production, more revenue, which sounds fine, except that Ferrari built its reputation on exclusivity. You weren’t supposed to be able to just walk into a dealership and buy a Ferrari. You had to work for it. Earn it. Have the right contacts.

Now, Ferrari is building more cars than ever before, and suddenly, they’re not feeling as special. They’re losing their mystique.

The Last of the Great Designs?

I recently filmed a video on the F8 Spider, and the more I think about it, the more I realise it may have been the last of the truly beautiful Ferraris. Because the F8 was a tribute to Ferrari’s great V8 lineage, a car that still carried echoes of Pininfarina’s influence, it had drama, presence, and a sense of occasion that the newer cars seem to be missing. But it was also the end of an era. The F8 is the last mid-engined V8 Ferrari without hybrid assistance, the last one with that pure, unfiltered, naturally explosive engine note. The last one that truly felt like an event every time you drove it.

And now? Now we have hybrid systems bolted to turbochargers, and increasingly anonymous designs.

So, What Next?

This is where Ferrari needs to be very, very careful. Because right now, it’s on the edge of a dangerous slope. If people start questioning whether a Ferrari is a good investment, they will start questioning whether they want one at all, and that is unthinkable. Ferrari is supposed to be the brand that everyone aspires to own. The brand that makes your heart race. The brand that you buy with your soul, not with a calculator.

So I beg Ferrari. Wake up. Bring back the passion. Bring back the magic. Bring back the Ferrari that made us all fall in love with cars in the first place. Because if they don’t, I fear the next great Ferrari might not be remembered for how brilliant it was, but for how much it struggled to sell.

Written by: Paul Pearce