Being out of office due to the car burning a hole in my pocket, ie- getting serviced, along with some other chores, I didn’t get to read the article on Ferrari demanding 458 Speciale customers to thrown in extras or lose out to others who will until today.
I suspected that a certain Sergio Marchionne would start ruining what is probably the most cherished automotive brand in the world but I didn’t expect it to happen so soon.
The report about people having placed an order on the 458 Speciale only to be told afterwards that the company may pull them off the list if they don’t tick more boxes in the options list is plain disgraceful and does the Prancing Horse a disservice.
Ferrari has long said that it wanted to ensure its cars would go to actual customers and not speculators wanting to make easy money by floating them on the “used” (that’s a euphemism as they are brand new) car market on a premium.
That’s why you had to be invited to buy an Enzo or a LaFerari, or what the automaker calls its “specials”; to supposedly weed out the speculators from the true customers.
Ferrari has now become a speculator itself. Since the 458 Speciale is expected to rise in value, being a special edition et al, it blackmails people who’ve placed an order to specify more options or lose out to those willing to do so.
Any way you slice it, that’s blatant speculation on Ferrari’s part. What it does is place a premium on the vehicle’s original price and trying to make an extra profit based on the Speciale being in high demand.
To shrug it off by saying that people who can afford to pay nearly 210 grand on a car can pay, say, 220 or 250, doesn’t cut it. If Ferrari wanted an extra profit they should have put a higher price tag in the first place. It’s as simple as that. There isn’t a shortage of customers after all – quite the opposite, right?
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