...Rolex Coolness...
Sir Jony Ive
Rocking a Rolex Daytona
There are certain people you would love to see rocking a Rolex, but you think that it's just not possible. One such example is legendary former Apple Chief Designer, Jony Ive. Why do I say I never expected to ever see Sir Jony rocking a Rolex? Two reasons:
1. I never saw him wear one in the past.
2. Since he designed the Apple Watch, I assumed he was too cool to go back to wearing a mechanical watch, but man was I wrong...
For the record, I once met Jony Ive, years ago when he and Steve Jobs, who I also knew, were opening the first Apple store in San Francisco, California. Ive was the most humble, sweet, unassuming man I think I have ever met, and Jobs was the literal antithesis, which may explain why they got along so marvelously.
Jony Ive is arguably the most famous industrial designer today, as he was the lead Apple designer for decades. He left Apple years ago and started his own San Francisco based design firm named, Love From. Ive was recently interviewed, after having designed the highly polarizing new Ferrari Luce, and as a fellow designer, and design fanatic of the highest order, I was watching this fascinating video interview, which I share later in this story.
In the photo below we see Sir Jony Ive in the Ferrari archives with Piero Ferarri, who is the son of Ferrari founder, Enzo Ferrari, and we see Jony rocking a platinum Rolex Daytona. Piero Ferrai serves as the Vice Chairman and Non-Executive Director of the brand today, and he has long worn Rolex watches as well. Mark Newsom, who is Jony Ive's design partner is pictured on the left, and my understanding is he also played a role in the design of the interior of the new Ferrari.
The First All-Electric Ferrari
Sir Jony Ive, the renowned designer, crafted the interior of the all-new, all-electric Ferrari LUCE. However, it’s somewhat perplexing to determine if he and Mark Newsom were involved in the design of the exterior, which has been met with significant controversy. The LUCE stands as a groundbreaking vehicle, marking Ferrari’s inaugural foray into the realm of electric vehicles. Despite its impressive features, it comes with a hefty price tag of approximately $600,000. Notably, it is slower than the Tesla Plaid Model S. Additionally, the LUCE holds the distinction of being the first five-seater vehicle ever produced by Ferrari.
As a hardcore Tesla Fanatic, and Publisher of TeslaMagazine.org, I would argue the Ferrari LUCE is a non-starter as it lacks any Full Self Driving technology, which would allow the vehicle to drive itself. Even the most basic, and least expensive Tesla that is around $40K, features FSD, which is a revolutionary game-changing technology. If you are not familiar with FSD, it's Tesla software, built into every recent model made in the past 5 years, that allows the care to drive just about anywhere on earth by itself.
"If I were to say what I really think, it would be unpleasant, so I prefer not to comment. We risk destroying a legend, and I'm truly sorry about that. I hope they at least remove the Prancing Horse from that car. It is certainly a car that at least the Chinese won’t copy."—Luca Cordero di Montezemolo
(former Chairman of Ferrari)
ONE MORE THANG
Let's examine the supremely ironic relationship between Tesla and Ferrari. Ironically, Tesla just recently discontinued their Model S, and a week or so later, Ferrari introduces, what for all intent is their Model S, which is ironically slower doing 0-60, than the recently discontinued Tesla Model S Plaid. The incoming Ferrari LUCE is almost identical to the outgoing Tesla Model S in length, width and wheelbase, with the exception being that the LUCE is 4.5 inches taller.
Comparing the LUCE to the Model S, made me wonder what it might look like without that bizarro front air intake, so I asked Grok to remove it, which it was not able to do a very good job of, but it presented me with this very interesting render. The more I looked at it, the more I realized how similar looking the LUCE might be to the Model S, if it had a normal front, and maybe that's why they chose to make it look different. If you really think about it, as I previously mentioned the LUCE and Model S are almost identical in proportions, thus the LUCE is a Model S, which is just taller, which was an arguable limitation or design flaw of the Model S is that it was too low, and really should have been about 5 inches taller. Also, I realized that Ferrari said nothing about having a front trunk "frunk", which seems kind of strange to me.
Pictured above we see a render of the Ferrari LUCE in black with the air scoop removed, which looks fairly similar to the Tesla Model S, which is pictured below. I think, from what I can tell, it appears that the Ferrari has a longer windsheild that drops lower in the front to perhaps provide better road visibility.
It's also worth pointing out the Ferrari LUCE has its two winsheild wipers fixed in the upright position on each side of the windsheild, kind of like a CyberTruck blade.
Upcoming 2026 Tesla Roadster
Here is where it gets even more interesting, Tesla is just preparing to showcase and launch their all-new 2026 Tesla Roadster, which is so state-of-the-art, it features cold thruster rockets on all four sides of the vehicle, that among other things can accelerate it from 0-60MPH in under a second, not to mention do the exact opposite to slow it down in a fraction of the time that standard brakes would take.
That's right. It has cold-fusion rocket thrusters—designed by Elon Musk's Space X rocket engineers—all around the vehicle that can fire on demand in a controlled manner to speed up, slow down, or control lean in hard cornering.
As an example, let's say you were driving in wintertime down the Waldo Grade on U.S. Highway 101, and after you drive through the rainbow tunnel, on the downhill road heading over the Golden Gate Bridge, on your way to San Francisco, you were to hit invisible black ice, which would render your car brakes useless, the car would sense this condition and apply its rear and side facing thrusters to basically fly the car so it could stay perfectly in its lane, as if there was not black ice on the road.
In other words, under such adverse conditions any "normal" car could loose control and slide all over the place, but the Tesla could basically counteract the ice by hovering the car in place.
Also, the Tesla Roadster will be able to drive you anywhere in world, door-to-door, safely, using FSD, but no Ferrari can do such a thing, not to mention that Ferrari doesn't have it's own supercharging network. That's OK, though, as you would still be able to charge your $600K Ferrari LUCE at EV GO, or Electrify American chargers, if and when you can find one that is not out of order, and if it is working will charge you way more than Tesla to recharge.
On TeslaMagazine.org, as well as here on RolexMagazine.com, I have long argued that Tesla has had the entire automotive industry in Checkmate, and we are seeing this reality slowly becoming more and more obvious as time goes by.
In the meantime, I would argue the Ferrari Luce is just about as close as we will get to seeing what Apple's Electric car would have looked like had Tim Cook not cancelled its program. When I look at the Ferrari LUCE, it looks uninspiring to me. It looks like a neutered A-Sexual Ferrari, or a 1980s Chevy Impala wearing a Covid mask...or like somebody driving around by themselves in a car today, wearing a Covid mask...In other words, I am NOT impressed, but deeply disappointed with Ferrari...I believe if you removed all the Ferrari logos and branding from the Ferrari LUCE, and drove it down the road, nobody would ever think it was, or associate it with the Ferrari brand.
Ferarri cars have always looked like verbs. Kind of like a NIKE Swoosh logo, that looks like it's in motion, even when it's standing still. Same with historical Ferrari design language. But the LUCE looks like a noun, or like a bizarre two-tone plastic soap dish. On a positive note, MHBHD, in the video below presents a superb walk around tour of the Ferrari LUCE, and points out a bunch of fascinating details:
Who know!?!! Maybe I am wrong with my initial impressions, and the Ferrari LUCE might grow on me. I have often said that I have to hate somebody or something before I can love it or them. Either way, congratulations to Ferrari as they have every dude on earth talking about their all-new, all-electric Ferrari, and as they say, "In the world of public relations, there is not such thing as bad news. Just great exposure." Also, if we look at the glass as being half full, I imagine Ferrari is excited to finally have a family car that can comfortably fit 4-5 adults, not to mention, I think its the first Ferrari where a wealthy person can be chauffeured in the back seat.
On a side note, in case you end up reading this article Jony, your platinum Daytona looks like a million bucks on your wrist, and welcome to the pantheon of Rolex Super Coolness...Wear it well!!!!
You can find out much more about the Ferrari LUCE on their dedicated microsite.
