What Happens When A Legend Forgets Who It Is?

Quick question: what color is Ferrari? 

Bet you didn’t have to think about it. 

Not because Ferrari owns the color red. Or because their marketing department spent decades reminding you.

But because Ferrari and red are almost synonymous now. They evoke the same feelings. Bold. Confident. Loud. Passionate. 

Which is why the company’s new quasi baby blue electric vehicle, the Luce, is so unsettling.

The complaints have nothing to do with the fact that it’s electric. Or the fact that it has four doors and five seats. People are upset because it doesn’t look or feel like a Ferrari. The soft curves, the pastel paint, the whiff of Silicon Valley (Jony Ives, of Apple, helped design it) are all proof to the fans that the brand has lost its edge. 

One of the harshest critics is Luca di Montezemolo, who spent over two decades building the Ferrari brand. His verdict: “If I had to say what I really think, I would be hurting Ferrari, we’re risking the destruction of a legend, and I’m truly sorry about that. I hope they at least remove the prancing horse.” When one of the architects of a brand publicly apologizes on its behalf, you know it’s bad.

His apology may sound dramatic until we take a moment to think about what Ferrari has actually been selling all these years.

It was never transportation.
It was never engineering.
It wasn’t even horsepower. 

What Ferrari really sold was a feeling. 

Apple has always meant simplicity.
Harley has always meant rebellion.
Patagonia has always meant environmental responsibility.
Ferrari has ALWAYS meant passion. 

When people buy from companies like these, they’re not just buying products. They’re buying an identity.

And if you tamper with an identity people have spent decades believing in, they push back. 

Take a gander through the complaints. Nobody is saying, “This is a bad car.” They’re saying “Come on, Ferrari, this isn’t you.” Those are very different critiques. 

Every organization eventually faces the same temptation: Growth creates new opportunities. New markets appear. New regulations emerge. New technologies arrive. The pressure to adapt becomes overwhelming. Adaptation is necessary. But adaptation and abandonment are not the same thing.

The best organizations evolve their expression while protecting the core of what makes them, them. 

When people look at the Luce, do they still see Ferrari? Or does Ferrari mean something else now? 

We all have our own version of Ferrari Red. The thing that separates our work, our companies from everyone else. Let Ferrari serve as a reminder to never paint over it.