Ferrari Luce is seen during the Fanatics Fest NYC 2026 at Jacob Javits Center on July 18, 2026 in New York City. ” width=”877″ height=”572″ data-caption=’A Ferrari Luce is seen during the Fanatics Fest NYC 2026 at Jacob Javits Center on July 18, 2026 in New York City. <span class=”lazyload media-credit”>Rob Kim/Getty Images for Fanatics</span>’>
This Saturday, the first of Ferrari’s polarizing EVs, the Luce, will head to auction at RM Sotheby’s during Monterey Car Week. With a presale estimate above $1.1 million, nearly double its retail base price, plenty of people will be watching closely to see how much it actually fetches. Designed by former Apple designer Jony Ive and his team at LoveFrom, the Ferrari Luce was widely panned and heavily mocked online when it debuted globally in May. Ferrari’s stock also dropped significantly amid concerns that the fully electric supercar deviated too far from the company’s iconic and lauded design language.
But some of that backlash has faded following news that the new Ferrari has “sold like hotcakes,” according to Fortune Magazine. As of last month, sales of the EV had hit the company’s 2026 target of 500 units. The Luce MSRP starts at around $630,000, and the vehicle for sale through RM Sotheby’s, known as VIN 0, will land in collectors’ hands sometime in 2027.
“I think the estimate is realistic,” John Wiley, Director of Valuation Analytics with Hagerty on their Automotive Intelligence team, told Observer. “I think they’re being sort of cautious in the estimate, but doubling MSRP is kind of the starting point for these kinds of auctions.”
Buy a Luce to get access to higher-value Ferraris?
According to Reuters, Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna was “very pleased” with the news about the Luce. But reporting by Bloomberg in June showed that Ferrari was “nudging” buyers to order the Luce to “preserve access to more desirable cars.”
Ferrari Chief Marketing and Commercial Officer Enrico Galliera pushed back on Bloomberg’s story during a product presentation following the report. According to Reuters, he said that “applying that kind of pressure would be a ‘huge mistake.’”
But Ferrari does have a long history of prioritizing what Reuters called “established clients, namely multiple owners, as well as those who participate in factory events and retain cars for long periods.”
According to Wiley, customers pursuing allocations for new cars at the top end of the company’s portfolio, such as the LaFerrari or Daytona SP3, buy around 10 new Ferraris and typically keep each car for only about a year before trading up. This helps push Ferrari vehicle values considerably higher. The company has reportedly used a similar approach with previous models, including the California, which buyers were pushed to purchase to get access to models such as the LaFerrari, according to Jalopnik.
“It will be interesting to see if the Luce is in the same sort of system, where Ferrari is encouraging people to buy them so they can get the allocation for something else that they maybe want more,” Wiley said.
A sale for charity
RM’s site says that proceeds from the sale of VIN 0 will go to The Ferrari Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charity, to fund “future educational initiatives.”
Oddly, there is no public website associated with the charity, and few public details are available outside IRS filings. The organization was created in 2023. According to Ferrari’s press release about the sale, the funds will go to “Ferrari’s M-TECH Alfredo Ferrari in Maranello, Italy, as well as ongoing educational initiatives in the U.S.A.” M-TECH is an educational center for young automotive engineers scheduled to open in 2029.
A Ferrari spokesperson said that the Ferrari Foundation “is a collaboration with Save the Children, whereby Ferrari made a significant contribution to help rebuild the Aveson Charter School in Altadena, California, whose campus was tragically destroyed by the Eaton Wildfire earlier in 2025.” The 2025 IRS filing backs this up and shows that funds were also allocated for Fondazione Giovanni Agnelli’s construction of Motor Valley Cottege in Modena, Italy, and a separate educational program through Save the Children in Spain.
A charity sale with tax benefits can draw wealthy buyers who might not otherwise compete for a four-door electric Ferrari sedan, because it allows them to write off part of the vehicle’s price as a donation. “I think that if it weren’t a charity auction, it would still sell well,” Wiley said of the VIN 0 Luce, “but it wouldn’t sell for potentially 10 or 20 times what the MSRP is.”
Tailor-made spec for the tech set
While most Ferrari buyers prefer to customize their own vehicles, VIN 0 is already built. Ferrari sent it to its “Tailor Made” department, the company’s bespoke design group, which finished the highly maligned vehicle in white rather than the blue in which it debuted. The car wears Madreperla Semi-Gloss paint, with flecks of iridescence that appear purple and green in shifting light. Its wheels are white, while the interior is black and white.
Ferrari noted in its press release that the color combination focuses on a “central concept of light, especially rendered through white and its innate ability to transform the perception of surfaces.” Given how widely Luce was panned online, Ferrari may be betting that the color scheme will make it less controversial.
Wiley said that nontraditional colors, including white, can increase desirability by making a car more visually distinctive. “The average age for a lot of these more valuable vehicles tends to be pretty high, but I do think that Ferrari potentially can do well with this vehicle and attract new people that wouldn’t have considered a Ferrari in the past,” he said.
It also doesn’t hurt that Pebble Beach, the exclusive California coastal enclave where the auction will take place, is within a short drive of Silicon Valley, home to some of the wealthiest tech leaders and investors.
The VIN 0 Ferrari Luce will go on sale Saturday, Aug. 15, after 5:30 p.m. PT.
