The Meme Wave Became a Market Event

When we covered the Luce's unveiling, the mockery was loud but easy to dismiss. Rich people have always bought ugly cars. The internet always hates something new.

Then the market opened.

According to The Guardian, Ferrari's share price dropped 8% in morning trading on Tuesday in Milan before settling at a 6% decline. The company was valued at €56 billion before the launch. That's real money evaporating in real time.

Bloomberg's Craig Trudell offered the bull case on broadcast: "They don't necessarily have to sell a ton of these to declare victory here." Fair point — Ferrari sells exclusivity, not volume. But a 6% hit on a €56 billion company isn't noise. That's the market saying something.

Reddit Is Calling for the CEO's Job

The Ferrari subreddit isn't just posting memes anymore. According to CNET, there are now active threads asking for CEO Benedetto Vigna's resignation.

The man runs one of the most profitable automaker brands on earth, and fans are calling for his head because of a design choice.

Vigna defended the car publicly. "We are convinced that a company demonstrates its leadership when it has the courage to dare," he said in the official launch statement. That's the kind of corporate-speak that sounds bold in a boardroom and hollow everywhere else.

Industry Designers Are Now Piling On — By Name

Derek Jenkins, SVP of Design and Brand at Lucid Motors, spoke directly to The Verge. His verdict was surgical: "The face of the car isn't identifiable… It's a mismatch with the brand. The proportions, lack of visual agility, even the expression of performance — is missing from the exterior."

Jenkins credited the taillights, the red color option, and the logo as the only elements still recognizable as Ferrari. Everything else, in his assessment, is a stranger wearing the badge.

Rob Enderle, writing for Torque News, framed the core problem bluntly: Apple's design language is reduction — hide the complexity, smooth the edges. Ferrari's design language is the opposite — express the mechanical violence. Wide stances. Aggressive intakes. Sculpted haunches. Visual threat.

enderle's point is that these two philosophies are NOT compatible, and Ferrari's board handed the keys to the wrong team for the wrong job.

What Mainstream Coverage Is Getting Wrong

Most outlets are framing this as a culture war between EV skeptics and Ferrari traditionalists. That's lazy.

This isn't about whether EVs are good or bad. The Luce's engineering is genuinely world-class — 1,035 horsepower, 800-volt architecture, 122 kWh structural battery pack, 0-60 in 2.5 seconds, 330-mile range. Torque News flagged this clearly. The hardware is NOT the problem.

The problem is that Ferrari outsourced its soul to a consumer electronics firm and got a consumer electronics result.

Left-leaning outlets like The Verge are correctly noting the design failure but missing a bigger point: Ferrari quietly walked back its own EV ambitions before this launch even happened. According to The Guardian, Ferrari's 2030 target was originally 40% electric, 40% hybrid, 20% petrol. They've now flipped it — 40% petrol, 40% hybrid, 20% electric. That's a massive strategic reversal that got almost ZERO coverage in the Luce hype cycle.

Pope Leo Showed Up. Didn't Help.

In what has to be the most surreal footnote of the week, Pope Leo XIV sat behind the wheel of the Luce and was presented a steering wheel by Ferrari as tribute, according to CNET.

The papal blessing did not move public opinion. The internet kept posting vacuum cleaner comparisons.

Ferrari Just Told You Exactly Who This Car Is For

The Luce is Ferrari's first five-seater and only its second four-door model — after the Purosangue SUV. The Guardian noted this directly: it's pitched at super-wealthy families, not sportscar enthusiasts.

That's a legitimate business strategy. The ultra-rich have kids. Kids need seats. Ferrari wants that money too.

But there's a brand cost to that calculation that Vigna either underestimated or ignored. Ferrari's cultural power — the reason someone making $60,000 a year still cares what Ferrari does — runs on aspiration. On wanting the thing you can't have. The Luce doesn't look like something you can't have. According to The Verge's Abigail Bassett, people compared it to a Nissan Leaf. That comparison alone should keep the Maranello design team up at night.

Tim Levin at InsideEVs praised the interior — calling it "a total rejection of the screen-ification of cars" — and Mat Watson at Carwow called the exterior "dreadful." So the inside might be the redemption story nobody's talking about.

The Gamble

Ferrari bet that Jony Ive's credibility could carry a design that breaks 80 years of brand identity. The stock market, the design industry, and the internet all disagreed — loudly, simultaneously, and in public.

Preorders open in Italy by end of May. Rich people will buy it anyway. But Ferrari just spent decades of brand equity to move iron for buyers who didn't need the prancing horse to begin with.