A one-off Ferrari Luce, marked “Chassis 0,” sold for $40 million at RM Sotheby’s Monterey auction on August 17, the highest price ever paid for a new car at auction, with proceeds going to the Ferrari Foundation’s education programs.
The sale
The Luce “Tailor Made” is the first production chassis from Ferrari’s new electric vehicle program and, per Ferrari’s own description, the first fully electric car in the company’s history. It was displayed at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance during Monterey Car Week before the sale, and RM Sotheby’s waived its buyer’s premium on the lot since all proceeds go to the Ferrari Foundation, a registered 501(c)(3) charity.
Why “polarizing”
Multiple outlets covering the auction, including CNBC, described the Luce as a polarizing design ahead of the sale. Ferrari’s shift to a fully electric model has drawn pushback from parts of its enthusiast base since the car was first previewed, the same tension that’s followed other legacy performance-car makers moving into EVs. The $40 million result suggests that reaction didn’t extend to collectors bidding on a genuine first-of-line chassis.
Why it matters
A charity auction result isn’t the same signal as retail demand; this is a single collector-grade chassis, not a market read on how the production Luce will sell once deliveries start. But it is a real data point on how Ferrari’s most serious collectors are pricing the brand’s electric transition: a record-setting bid for Chassis 0 specifically, not just any Luce, says something about how much value the market puts on being first, independent of the electric-versus-combustion debate playing out in enthusiast forums. Whether that translates into retail order volumes is the test still ahead.
What to watch: Ferrari hasn’t yet confirmed a delivery date or full pricing for the production Luce lineup beyond this one-off sale.
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