The most polarizing Ferrari ever just sold for 40 million dollars
The car nobody could agree on is worth more than almost every V12 Maranello ever built
The Ferrari Luce has been the most argued-over car in Maranello's history since the day it broke cover, an electric Ferrari that split the faithful straight down the middle. So there is a lovely irony in what just happened in Monterey. Chassis number 0, the very first Luce built, sold at RM Sotheby's for 40 million dollars, all of it to charity. The internet can keep arguing. Someone just put forty million on the table.
Forty million for the first of its kind
The sale took place at RM Sotheby's during Monterey Car Week, offered without reserve, and every cent goes to The Ferrari Foundation to support educational initiatives. As we reported ahead of the sale, the pre-sale guidance sat around 1.1 million dollars, roughly 950,000 euros. The hammer landed at 40 million. That is not a typo, and it is not forty percent over estimate, it is close to forty times it.
At that figure, chassis number 0 sits among the most expensive cars ever sold at public auction, and it comfortably eclipses the other headline Ferrari of the week, the Daytona SP3 that changed hands for 17.8 million dollars. A first-of-line production car with a charitable cause and a plaque confirming its place in history was always going to attract deep pockets. Few expected it to attract this many of them.
What the buyer actually got
This is no ordinary Luce. Chassis 0 wears a Tailor Made specification finished in Madreperla semi-gloss, a mother-of-pearl white with iridescent reflections, matched by wheels and brake calipers in the same colour. Inside sits a Le Mans leather cabin in Perla with Grigio Corvara accents, and a special plaque confirming it as the first series-production electric Ferrari. It is, in every sense, the reference example.
Underneath the paint is the powertrain that started all the arguing: four electric motors, one at each wheel, for a combined 1.050 pk. Ferrari quotes 0 to 100 km/h in 2,5 seconden and full five-seat practicality, the two numbers that best capture why the Luce was such a shock to the system. It is a Ferrari that seats a family and out-accelerates the supercars, without a single cylinder involved.
AutoNext Take
There is no cleaner rebuttal to the Luce's critics than a 40 million dollar hammer. You can dislike an electric Ferrari, you can mourn the V12, but the market has just told you in the loudest possible voice that the first Luce is treated as a genuine piece of Ferrari history, not a footnote. Chassis 0 was never really about the powertrain anyway. It was about being first, being charitable and being unrepeatable, and collectors pay for that combination regardless of what is under the floor.
The smart move here is Ferrari's. By funnelling the whole sum to its foundation, Maranello turns the most divisive launch in its modern history into a feel-good headline and a record it can quietly enjoy. The tifosi will keep debating whether an electric Ferrari deserves the badge. Meanwhile the very first one just became one of the most valuable cars the company has ever sold. Say what you like about the Luce, it is already writing itself into the record books.
