5 ms·

>why don’t more companies follow Ferrari’s lead Ford did try before. For example, the 2006 Ford GT. In comparison, the similarly-priced Ferrari F430 of the era

>why don’t more companies follow Ferrari’s lead Ford did try before. For example, the 2006 Ford GT. In comparison, the similarly-priced Ferrari F430 of the era was the mass market automobile with about 5x as many made. So I wonder how much one should draw from these rationalizations of prestige marketing. At the end of the day Ferrari still uses its larger super-car production capacity to keep even Ford only an occasional entrant into the low-end of market.

ben7799 1y ago
That still doesn't prove anything. The market demand for the Ford GT could have been 1/2 what Ford produced but the market demand for the F430 was double what Ferrari actually produced. I am not saying that is actually the case, but production #s just don't really tell the whole story. Ford only dabbles in these kinds of cars, they have different reasons for picking the # of units they build. They are a lot like Honda, they are not dedicated to this and they instead just build a small # of sports cars every once in a while to try and improve their reputation. The article glosses over the core founding purpose of each company too. Ford was founded to build massive #s of assembly line built cars at a price the average worker could afford. Ferrari very reluctantly built street cars to fund racing and decided the sport/luxury cars were the best way to make the maximum money with the smallest # of street cars. Less street cars meant less distraction from building the racing cars.
- trynumber9 1y ago
  I'm not saying it proves anything but Ferrari is one of the higher volume manufacturers within super cars This applies even compared to many of their competitors we think of as mass market car producers (such as Ford, Toyota, Honda) when they make cars that compete with Ferrari. As you say that's almost entirely due to demand. But the focus should be on how does Ferrari consistently keep such a large portion of the high end car market? Because that's the key to their success. Many companies can make cars that they can sell out in small volumes at Ferrari prices. But they don't see it scaling, while Ferrari does.
  - prmoustache 1y ago
    > But the focus should be on how does Ferrari consistently keep such a large portion of the high end car market? Formula 1 There is no other brands that has as much history in Formula 1 than Ferrari. McLaren is the second one in current constructors at 988 race entries but only started fairly recently (compared to Ferrari) to sell street cars, Lotus a distant 3rd one but hasn't been in formula 1 for the last 30years. Mercedes involvment in Formula 1 is fairly recent. In a way, FERRARI IS FORMULA 1 and FORMULA 1 IS FERRARI. Both need each other. Among other F1 teams and appart from Ferrari, McLaren and Mercedes, only Alpine Renault is fully involved and is definitely not in the luxury sports car market. In the case of Aston Martin it is really much more sponsoring/rebranding of a team than a real constructor as the Aston Martin team, formerly Racing Point, is running a Mercedes Engine. Appart from McLaren which is less known in the street there is simply no other brand like Ferrari in Formula 1. Here are some numbers according to Wikipedia: _"Ferrari holds the record for the most Constructors' and Drivers' Championships won with sixteen and fifteen, respectively.[8][9] Ferrari also holds the record for the most wins by a constructor with 248,[10] the most pole positions with 253,[11] the most points with 10572,[12] and the most podiums with 834.[13] Ferrari has also entered more Grands Prix than any other constructor with 1114 entries and also maintains the record for the most Grand Prix starts with 1111.[14]"_ source with complete table of current and past constructors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Formula_One_constructors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Formula_One_constructo... Alfa Roméo and Maserati used to be in the same if not better place than Ferrari in the early 50's. And their place in the luxury market constantly faded once they scaled down (being engine suppliers) then stopped their involvment in Grand Prix racing.
neogodless 1y ago
Building a halo product that attempts to compete in a luxury niche is very different from running your (whole) business like a luxury niche leader. We see similar cases with the highest end Chevrolet Corvette. If you look only at statistics and performance numbers, they are arguably competitive, but cheaper. But GM intends to sell as many Corvettes as they can. They do not particularly restrict them in quantity or with a particularly inflated price that represents their role as a status signal or unobtainable luxury piece.
- trynumber9 1y ago
  That's why I choose two cars that are at effectively in the same target market at around the same price from the same time period, from Ford and Ferrari.
  - neogodless 1y ago
    That's fine, but maybe missing my point. You're choosing cars (single products) but claiming that businesses are operating in a similar manner. All Ferrari cars are part of how Ferrari operates, while the GT was an exception to how Ford operates.
    - trynumber9 1y ago
      And I don't dispute that. Simply that Ferrari is the Ford of super cars, building in large quantity for that market. And I really doubt the applicability of the luxury approach to software. People will vastly overpay to have a 5% faster automobile because it's a personally-owned status symbol and has racing-pedigree. I don't recommend building a company around a new 5% faster database since it isn't a source of prestige for anyone. For many potential customers it'd barely put a mark in their bottom line. And it might be negative if it compromised in any other aspect to obtain it. Benchmarking isn't a reliable winner-take-all marketing approach like racing-based marketing (and it sure isn't as popular).
      - binary132 1y ago
beau_g 1y ago
Making a high performance, expensive, rare car is a small part of the recipe. Most Ferrari owners own more than one Ferrari (65% according to Ferrari of North America study from a decade ago or so, not sure if there's an updated number). A significant number of owners own more than 2. Ferrari famously has dealer prioritization and waitlists that reward you for buying more cars, just like Rolex which another poster mentioned below. When I was servicing these cars around 2015, many customers would buy FFs and Californias that they didn't necessarily want just to have the option to buy something like a first year 458 Spider, not even one of the particularly rare offerings. If someone got something truly low production like a LaFerrari or F12 TDF, chances are that customer had already bought 10+ cars from the dealer and immediately trades in many of their cars at a multi hundred thousand dollar loss to them as soon as they are able to get out of a "regular" model into a special edition. Ferrari drives/meets also serve as social clubs/networking which certainly does provide some positive value for many owners of these vehicles. Very few customers I ever met really cared about outright performance/$ and would have been cross shopping a Ford GT with a 430.
- caycep 1y ago
  Also they are very specific owners. There's one guy here in LA, specifically the San Gabriel Valley neighborhood who realized there were a ton of visitors from mainland China flush with cash who were either coming as tourists or buying property, i.e. the "fuerdai" phenomenon. Cue a few strategically placed watch/jewelry and lambo/ferrari dealerships later, and I think he's one of the top sellers of their cars in North America...
kulahan 1y ago
Man, what I wouldn't give for one of those Ford GTs though. Really cool car imo. The fact that it comes from Ford kinda makes it more exciting to me. Like yeah, a Ferrari is a Ferrari, but wtf is a Ford doing here?? And why does it fit in so well??
- gpderetta 1y ago
  Maybe it is not as renowned as Ferrari, but Ford also has a rich racing history, even in F1.
ricardobayes 1y ago
Yes, although "larger" here might not be understood by many people. The 360, which was said to be a "larger" production car (by Ferrari standards), only approximately 17,000 of those were ever made.

ben7799 1y ago

That still doesn't prove anything. The market demand for the Ford GT could have been 1/2 what Ford produced but the market demand for the F430 was double what Ferrari actually produced. I am not saying that is actually the case, but production #s just don't really tell the whole story. Ford only dabbles in these kinds of cars, they have different reasons for picking the # of units they build. They are a lot like Honda, they are not dedicated to this and they instead just build a small # of sports cars every once in a while to try and improve their reputation. The article glosses over the core founding purpose of each company too. Ford was founded to build massive #s of assembly line built cars at a price the average worker could afford. Ferrari very reluctantly built street cars to fund racing and decided the sport/luxury cars were the best way to make the maximum money with the smallest # of street cars. Less street cars meant less distraction from building the racing cars.

trynumber9 1y ago
I'm not saying it proves anything but Ferrari is one of the higher volume manufacturers within super cars This applies even compared to many of their competitors we think of as mass market car producers (such as Ford, Toyota, Honda) when they make cars that compete with Ferrari. As you say that's almost entirely due to demand. But the focus should be on how does Ferrari consistently keep such a large portion of the high end car market? Because that's the key to their success. Many companies can make cars that they can sell out in small volumes at Ferrari prices. But they don't see it scaling, while Ferrari does.
- prmoustache 1y ago
  > But the focus should be on how does Ferrari consistently keep such a large portion of the high end car market? Formula 1 There is no other brands that has as much history in Formula 1 than Ferrari. McLaren is the second one in current constructors at 988 race entries but only started fairly recently (compared to Ferrari) to sell street cars, Lotus a distant 3rd one but hasn't been in formula 1 for the last 30years. Mercedes involvment in Formula 1 is fairly recent. In a way, FERRARI IS FORMULA 1 and FORMULA 1 IS FERRARI. Both need each other. Among other F1 teams and appart from Ferrari, McLaren and Mercedes, only Alpine Renault is fully involved and is definitely not in the luxury sports car market. In the case of Aston Martin it is really much more sponsoring/rebranding of a team than a real constructor as the Aston Martin team, formerly Racing Point, is running a Mercedes Engine. Appart from McLaren which is less known in the street there is simply no other brand like Ferrari in Formula 1. Here are some numbers according to Wikipedia: _"Ferrari holds the record for the most Constructors' and Drivers' Championships won with sixteen and fifteen, respectively.[8][9] Ferrari also holds the record for the most wins by a constructor with 248,[10] the most pole positions with 253,[11] the most points with 10572,[12] and the most podiums with 834.[13] Ferrari has also entered more Grands Prix than any other constructor with 1114 entries and also maintains the record for the most Grand Prix starts with 1111.[14]"_ source with complete table of current and past constructors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Formula_One_constructors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Formula_One_constructo... Alfa Roméo and Maserati used to be in the same if not better place than Ferrari in the early 50's. And their place in the luxury market constantly faded once they scaled down (being engine suppliers) then stopped their involvment in Grand Prix racing.

neogodless 1y ago

Building a halo product that attempts to compete in a luxury niche is very different from running your (whole) business like a luxury niche leader. We see similar cases with the highest end Chevrolet Corvette. If you look only at statistics and performance numbers, they are arguably competitive, but cheaper. But GM intends to sell as many Corvettes as they can. They do not particularly restrict them in quantity or with a particularly inflated price that represents their role as a status signal or unobtainable luxury piece.

trynumber9 1y ago
That's why I choose two cars that are at effectively in the same target market at around the same price from the same time period, from Ford and Ferrari.
- neogodless 1y ago
  That's fine, but maybe missing my point. You're choosing cars (single products) but claiming that businesses are operating in a similar manner. All Ferrari cars are part of how Ferrari operates, while the GT was an exception to how Ford operates.
  - trynumber9 1y ago
    And I don't dispute that. Simply that Ferrari is the Ford of super cars, building in large quantity for that market. And I really doubt the applicability of the luxury approach to software. People will vastly overpay to have a 5% faster automobile because it's a personally-owned status symbol and has racing-pedigree. I don't recommend building a company around a new 5% faster database since it isn't a source of prestige for anyone. For many potential customers it'd barely put a mark in their bottom line. And it might be negative if it compromised in any other aspect to obtain it. Benchmarking isn't a reliable winner-take-all marketing approach like racing-based marketing (and it sure isn't as popular).
    - binary132 1y ago

beau_g 1y ago

Making a high performance, expensive, rare car is a small part of the recipe. Most Ferrari owners own more than one Ferrari (65% according to Ferrari of North America study from a decade ago or so, not sure if there's an updated number). A significant number of owners own more than 2. Ferrari famously has dealer prioritization and waitlists that reward you for buying more cars, just like Rolex which another poster mentioned below. When I was servicing these cars around 2015, many customers would buy FFs and Californias that they didn't necessarily want just to have the option to buy something like a first year 458 Spider, not even one of the particularly rare offerings. If someone got something truly low production like a LaFerrari or F12 TDF, chances are that customer had already bought 10+ cars from the dealer and immediately trades in many of their cars at a multi hundred thousand dollar loss to them as soon as they are able to get out of a "regular" model into a special edition. Ferrari drives/meets also serve as social clubs/networking which certainly does provide some positive value for many owners of these vehicles. Very few customers I ever met really cared about outright performance/$ and would have been cross shopping a Ford GT with a 430.

caycep 1y ago
Also they are very specific owners. There's one guy here in LA, specifically the San Gabriel Valley neighborhood who realized there were a ton of visitors from mainland China flush with cash who were either coming as tourists or buying property, i.e. the "fuerdai" phenomenon. Cue a few strategically placed watch/jewelry and lambo/ferrari dealerships later, and I think he's one of the top sellers of their cars in North America...

kulahan 1y ago

Man, what I wouldn't give for one of those Ford GTs though. Really cool car imo. The fact that it comes from Ford kinda makes it more exciting to me. Like yeah, a Ferrari is a Ferrari, but wtf is a Ford doing here?? And why does it fit in so well??

gpderetta 1y ago
Maybe it is not as renowned as Ferrari, but Ford also has a rich racing history, even in F1.

ricardobayes 1y ago

Yes, although "larger" here might not be understood by many people. The 360, which was said to be a "larger" production car (by Ferrari standards), only approximately 17,000 of those were ever made.