The Disappointing Ferrari Luce and Mercedes-AMG 4-Door GT Demand Honesty

Before I get to Ferrari’s latest, some context:

“And there goes Brad Pitt,” the British lady announced to the 600-person crowd gathered on a temporary grandstand smack in the middle of Los Angeles’ 6th Street Bridge. To celebrate its new electric super-sedan, the ill-named 2027 GT 4-Door Coupe, Mercedes shut down a major thoroughfare just east of downtown L.A. that it fancifully claimed was “the Autobahn.”

AMG paid not only Mr. Pitt to make a laughably brief appearance (he literally got out of a car and walked away) but Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 drivers George Russell and wunderkind Kimi Antonelli were there, as well. A gaggle of lesser celebrities were on hand; at one point I was standing next to Kevin Hart. Incongruously, pop-punkers Blink 182 were the musical guests, and even though the band is wealthier than most of the people in attendance, I enjoyed how it made fun of the crowd for being rich enough to buy an AMG. Oh, and the GT 4-Door Coupe is goofy looking. A real miss, design-wise. Although compared to the astonishingly unsexy Ferrari Luce EV that the Italian company revealed in Rome a week later, we might as well hang this AMG in the Louvre.

Many years ago, I accompanied McLaren on a drive from its Woking, U.K., headquarters just southwest of London to Geneva for the now defunct motor show. (I’ll get back to the Luce, I promise.) Hell of a drive, including 140 mph on a snowy Autobahn and a blast from Switzerland to Italy through the Montblanc Tunnel on our way to lunch in Vaduz, Liechtenstein. This is the kind of stuff I dreamed about while reading car magazines as a kid.

But during dinner one night with whoever the McLaren CEO was at the time, us auto journalist types found ourselves sitting not with him but with the CEO of McLaren North America. The actual CEO was sitting with then-new-to-the-scene influencers. Influencers, mind you, who didn’t go on the drive, didn’t spend days with the cars ... they just popped in for some steak frites and to (probably) record whatever it was McLaren wanted them to record the following day. I also once participated in a “lifestyle” Range Rover launch event where three of the influencers “reviewing” the rigs couldn’t drive them because—get ready for it—they didn’t have driver’s licenses. No, really.

I grumbled loudly to the McLaren PR folks at my table that I was miffed I wouldn’t get a chance to chat with the CEO. They mentioned that not only could the North American guy answer all my questions, but influencers are the new hot thing and the CEO wanted to get to know them. I then informed my PR colleague that they ought to be fighting tooth and nail against influencers, as influencers don’t need PR people. They are ultimately part of marketing; influencers (for the most part) just say whatever the script says. PR folks, on the other hand, are storytellers. It’s their job to convince (supposedly) independently minded journalists about the good qualities of a given car. And it’s the journalists’ job to cut through the BS and tell the truth about the car in question. In other words, PR gives our side access, and we tell people the truth. But if you have a category of “media” (influencers) that just regurgitates in video form all the corporate talking points, what the hell do you need PR people for?

I’m not naïve or arrogant enough to say all of us car scribes get it right every single time. But speaking only for myself, I always strive to review the car in question in an honest and straightforward manner. This process is not always comfortable. I was once in a meeting with an executive from Honda who flew in from Japan to question something negative one of us had written. Three times in my career, I’ve had a PR person say to me that never before in their career had they had to send such an email/make such a phone call in response to a story. I do take a little pride in that last bit. I recently shot a video about the $1,600,000 Gunther Werks F-26 where I said the headlights look like they were pulled off a Hyundai Ioniq 6, and Gunther Werks’ CEO was standing right there. He wasn’t pleased, but that’s my opinion—and that’s what I’m here to share. If you want a carmaker’s opinion of its own cars, head to its official website. Or watch what influencers have to say.

How is this all related to the brand new, all-electric Ferrari Luce? Well, the car—much of it designed by the iPhone guy (Jony Ive) and Marc Newson (also a fantastic industrial designer)—is a visual failure. Not that I believe in mob rule, but head over to Instagram and check out the comments people are leaving under Ferrari’s Luce posts. Beyond being overwhelmingly negative, it’s a tsunami of hatred. Thousands upon thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of brutally mean comments.

Putting on my design critic hat for a moment, if Toyota had said the Luce was the sixth-generation Prius, I would have thought, well, that’s a step backward from where we’re at, but good enough.

As a Ferrari?

The Luce abysmally misses the mark. There’s nothing Italian or exotic about it. I showed it to my wife (who knows nothing about cars), and she thought it looked like a USB stick. Here’s a comment my buddy and, more important, Ferrari customer Misha Mansoor left on Ferrari’s pinned Luce post: “My disappointment is immeasurable, and my day is ruined.” The comment had 17,000 likes last time I checked. This is from a guy who not only owned an 812 Superfast, but who also drives an EV daily. He is without question the Luce’s intended customer, despite whatever the brand says about some new, yet to be identified category of rich guy (the Luce is expected to start at something like $640,000). Ferrari’s stock price rose ahead of the car’s reveal, then dropped by 8 percent the day after it was unveiled. It’s just one bad-looking car.

I’m not going to call out any individuals, but I watched more than a dozen different influencer Instagram clips about the Luce and, man oh man, are they telling a different story. All seem quite happy with the way the car looks, with many pointing out the extreme importance of aerodynamics when it comes to EVs. Let me counter this nonsense by telling a little story from that same McLaren trip I mentioned above.

We were headed to the Geneva show for the launch of the then-new Senna, an awful-looking car if there ever was one. Late one night at a hotel bar after too many drinks, I was still arguing my wholly negative take on the Senna’s looks with the McLaren folks, when Nicko McBrain (the drummer for Iron Maiden) walked in with his good buddy, car design legend and former MotorTrend Car of the Year guest judge, Ian Callum. I loudly/rudely called Callum over and handed him my phone with a photo of the Senna showing on it. As Callum stared at it and humorously shook his head no, the McLaren PR man tried desperately to explain that aero was why the car had to look that way. I’ll never forget Callum’s response. “It didn’t have to look like that. You chose to make it look like that. It didn’t have to.” Similarly, almost every influencer I watched discussing the Ferrari Luce’s exterior kept explaining the design away in terms of aerodynamics, as if they’re all members of Adrian Newey’s internship program. The most honest take I heard was, “I’m not sure what to say.”

I could go on and on here. Each of them pointed out how “cool” the Luce’s key is, yet no one seemed to be aware that with good EVs, your phone is your key, and not only is pressing a start button a total waste of time, but having to dig into your purse or pocket and physically place a key in a spot and then push something is regressive. And man did I overdose on the word “considered.” Apparently, everything about the Luce’s design is “considered.” I watched a video where the phrase “considered design” was used five times. And we’re talking about a 90-second video. Scores of influencers went on about how happy they were at the return of buttons, missing, not knowing, or ignoring the fact buttons had already returned to Ferrari with the F80, then the Amalfi and 849 Testarossa.

When MT’s former editor in chief Angus Mackenzie hired me years ago, he laid out a couple of guidelines to follow. The first: We want to love all cars, and we’re disappointed when we don’t. It’s an attitude, for sure, but he believes (and I concur) it’s better than going in expecting to hate a vehicle and then being surprised when you don’t. Glass is half full, etc. The second: I was free to write whatever I wanted about a car, but please just make sure that if Angus is having dinner with a CEO, he’s able to justify my opinion to that person’s face.

These ideas have both served me well all these years later, and therein lies the difference between a car journalist and a car influencer. I can say the Luce’s design is awful without fear of repercussion from Ferrari. An influencer? They are there to repeat marketing bullet points in their own words. Should they express an independent, negative opinion, they won’t be seated again at any table, let alone the CEO’s.

Circling back to Mercedes’ L.A. stunt, here’s one final difference. Below the closed-down bridge, Mercedes had a “secret chamber” where if you agreed to hand over your phone, you could check out the upcoming SUV version of the GT 4-Door Coupe (it’s literally going to be called the GT 4-Door SUV, because Germany). Not only were we not allowed to photograph it, but with a straight face AMG asked us not to write about it. This is crazy for several reasons, the biggest being that in terms of design, the SUV is 20 if not 30 times better-looking than the Coupe. I said as much in an Instagram post of my own the next day. My punishment? I’m headed to Spain with Mercedes to check out the new electric V-Class in a few weeks. As for the several influencers who were in the secret chamber with me when we looked at the upcoming SUV? Not one has said a word.