Ferrari Luce style and aerodynamics

The design of the Ferrari Luce has been entrusted to LoveFrom, a collective founded by Sir Jony Ive and Marc Newson, in collaboration with the Ferrari Design Studio directed by Flavio Manzoni. The decision to involve a company outside the traditional structure of Ferrari car design is an integral part of the project. The aim was to bring a different language, consistent with a car born from a dedicated electric architecture. The surfaces are conceived as full, smooth, continuous volumes. The main visual feature is the glass house, described as a shell-like shape that extends below the beltline to the ends of the car. The central cell of the cabin thus becomes the visual core of the design, around which the bodywork elements and aerodynamic appendages seem to be arranged. The suspended front and rear wings are functional details. They are part of the aerodynamic strategy, along with active grilles, flow management and the reduction of surface discontinuities. Ferrari claims the lowest drag coefficient in the history of road cars for the Luce. To arrive at this result, aerodynamic development lasted more than five years, with about 6,000 simulations, 250 hours in the wind tunnel on a model and about 80 hours with a full-scale car. The cooling system is integrated in this logic. Active grilles shield the radiators when no cooling is needed and, under certain conditions, reduce or eliminate the resistance associated with the passage of air through the radiating masses. The set-up also contributes to efficiency. The active suspension can lower the front end by 10 millimetres under certain driving conditions. The rear end recovers an identity element with the round headlights, which bring the 360 Modena and 458 Italia to mind. With the lights off, however, the front and rear light clusters tend to disappear into the primary surfaces.