Tailor Made Ferrari: Letting Money Preside Over Taste

I stumbled across Tailor Made Ferrari this morning; a personalization program from Ferrari offering exclusivity their clients by creating unique cars to their (often misguided) tastes.


There are three Tailor Made collections here, broken into Classica, Scuderia, and Inedita. However, there seems to be mainly two trends going on here – one is creating a look which recalls the past, and the other is a look that is the definition of excess.


The Classica Collection is what it sounds like – modern interpretations of classic themes and cars. While this collection seems to be the most tasteful, there are thumbnails that appear on the site that aren’t, like the wire-wheeled California below.

The Scuderia Collection is similar to the Classica Collection, in that it contains modern interpretations of classic Ferrari race cars and liveries (the seem to focus mainly on classic racing paint/vinyl schemes). The problem here is that taken out of context, most of these packages look garish.

Lastly, the Inedita Collection is the main offender. It seems to exist solely to produce exactly what the client desires, regardless of whether the outcome is retina-searingly garish. Take for example the matte blue California with blue chrome accents, whose interior is lined with denim, blue leather, and loads more blue chrome. Or the two tone yellow and carbon fibre California with gold chrome accents.

Although the products featured on this site are obviously renderings, that doesn’t mean these products don’t exist. Witness Lapo Elkann’s denim California, which seems to be the basis for the denim Ferrari above and is in fact reality. If that sounds vaguely familiar, this happened before to a 599 Fiorano.

Zagadon't

Zagato is one of those styling firms that has a few misses in the past, but in my eyes they've had more misses than hits in recent memory.  Take these two blobby and almost identical rebodies - the 2006 Ferrari 575 GTZ and the 2008 Bently Continental GTZ.

Denim Destruction

Lapo Elkann is the grandson of the late Fiat chairman Gianni Agnelli. So it’s safe to say he has money, and possible connections to Ferrari. And little taste. Channeling AMC, Ferrari created this demin lined Ferrari 599 for him, with matching two-tone matte blue paint. I'm usually a fan of matte paint, but this colour makes it look as if it's made of Play Doh. And using Denim for anything other than clothes was a bad idea 40 years ago.

Fleur-de-Lose

I posted these on a Aston the other day, not knowing what they were. However, now I do. Made by Graf Weckerle, the aluminum and titanium baroque wonders rims are on the Compte Noir (black count en francais) edition Ferrari 599 Fiorano. Astonishingly they take 20 days to build.

http://www.grafweckerle.de/index2.html

Enzo Fail

Again - not exactly fugly. Posting it mainly because it's basically the world's most expensive kit car. Basically someone took a perfectly good Enzo and tried to make it look like an FXX. Which is sad, as most Ferrari fans will see through it - and the value of one of the most expensive Ferraris you can buy was most likely brought down by doing so.

Ferrari F430 Scuderia

So you may be wondering why I'm postings the F430 Scuderia. I don't think the car is fugly, just these two specifically. Why? Although it may be hard to tell in the muted dones above, the cars are painted a pale yellow with maroon accents. Quite tasteful if you ask me. And by tasteful I mean I can taste bile in my mouth because I just threw up a little.

The story is that the matching coupe and Spider were made special order for a wealthy customer, and that these photos were taken at a dealership displaying them until the owner took delivery. To make things worse, they're apparently the last two Scuderias ever made (hence the dash plaque below). Speaking of the interior, I think it's a bit more worse off than the exterior.

Hello Kitty Ferrari

You could have at least replaced the prancing horse with chrome kitty. Come on now.

Attack of the Clones: Ferroya Califolara

This is partially the reason I find the California ugly. It reminds me a lot of the melted blob of retirement transport that is the Solara.

Ferrari 456 Venice Convertible

Another special made by Pininfarina for the Sultan of Brunei. Two were made and feature this bizarre tapering rear end treatment. It'd look much better with the stock 456 rear end treatment. Pininfarina also made sedan and station wagon variants under the Venice name (see top pic), which actually don't like that bad.

Ferrari 330 GTC Zagato

Apparently it's "Rag on Ferrari Day". I suppose maybe this car was ahead of it's time being that it's from 1967 and it looks like bad kit car for a late 80's Renault Alpine. Still though - wouldn't you rather have an au-natural 330 GTC?

Ferrari FX - Fug Xtreme

The Ferrari FX was a one off made by Ferrari for the Sultan of Brunei. Well - seven were made in total. Let's just say I'm grateful there's only seven. Made from a late model Testarossa (well - a 512M) in 1995. Although by 1995 the Testarossa looked quite dated, it still looks a lot better than this.

Ferrari California

I might get lynched for this one, but let me explain myself... This car appears for the same reason as the Lexus IS-C - as an example of why a folding hardtop may not always be the best idea. Sure - they did a great job of packaging the roof in such a small area. But the resulting tall, bulbous rear end give the car a budonkadonk that isn't very sleek or svelte. Roof up it looks even more extreme.

Not a huge fan of the stacked tailpipes either. They make the tall rear end look even taller. But at least they're real (sorry again Lexus).

Sidenote: Ferrari - please bring back the quad tail lights.

SV 9 Competizione

"A Corvette, a Ferrari Scaglietti and an Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione walked into a bar..."

Ferrapri

A good sign that a car is not a real Ferrari is if it uses taillights from a Mercury Capri.

Ferrari Fuglietti

Some newer Ferraris - like the F430 and Enzo - I needed some time to grow to appreciate. But I try as I might but I still find the Scaglietti ugly. Which hurts me cause I liked the 456 a lot.

To me it just looks really fat and bloated, with tiny overcomplicated headlights and a grille that's way too big. Reminds me of a hippo. And although the "retro" scallops are a tie to the past, the fuglify the sides (although without them it would look even fatter).

When Fugs Mate - Ferrari Consiso

I cannot find anything about the Ferrari Consiso exept for a couple references in forums, but no specs or anything about who made. I found this pic while browsing a French Forum looking at a supercar post, and I've never seen it before.

I almost wish I hadn't. Looking at it instantly brought two other cars to mind - the Ford Indigo concept and the Phantom Corsair. Not a good looking bunch of cars, and they don't mix together very well either.

Fugerrari TR7

The Triumph TR7 was an ugly little car on it's own. Fugly even. Uniquely fugly. So I don't understand why someone would tack on a lame Ferrari rip-off bumper. Do they think they'll fool anyone?

Fugerrari Testagrossa

Why buy the real thing when you can buy a really crappy knockoff on ebay for $10,000?