Ferrari Already Speeding Up Production
Within a week of Luca di Montezemolo stepping down as Ferrari’s top man, after a bit of a row with the CEO of FIAT, the company announced that it would be stepping up production of the supercar manufacturer.
For those that don’t know why this is news, last week Ferrari’s CEO stepped down from the position he held for over 25 years after what many believe was internal fighting between him and the CEO of FIAT. The two have been privately fighting with one another over the past few years, mostly over the company’s recent racing woes and limited production scale of Ferrari.
While I can understand the frustration over the racing issues that Ferrari has had and how that can lead to squabbling, the main issue was production scale. Di Montezemolo wanted to keep the brand as exclusive as possible while expanding to new markets, a shrewd move much more in line with the thinking of the company’s founder Enzo Ferrari. Enzo famously only really wanted to sell enough road cars to fund his racing teams, which by principle kept the production figures low.
This though is all about to change. Sergio Marchionne, FIAT’s CEO, has rumored to have already pushed production past the 6,000 di Monetzemolo pegged it at, and has taken it all the way up to 10,000 units per year.
It seems like a bit of a slap in the face of di Montezemolo to have already gone and changed the issue he had been fighting over within the same week as he leaves. What was an even more middle finger seemed to have been the press release from Ferrari stating they would be celebrating the anniversary of Ferrari in the U.S. with a special limited series of 60 cars two days after he left.
As an enthusiast, more Ferraris made, means more Ferraris we all get to see, but at that point does it lose that unicorn feeling? If Ferraris become more common, then why will we care?