It's the ultimate symbol of wealth, or douchebaggery depending on your personal tastes.
Ferraris have been world renowned as the top luxury sports car brand in the world for almost
eight decades, and the tell-tale sharp angles of its most modern high end models are impossible
to miss.
Ranging from a few hundred thousand dollars, to a whopping seventy million dollars, a Ferrari
is the ultimate status symbol- but why in the world are Ferraris so expensive?
Ferrari has its origins with Enzo Ferrari, who created a racing car manufacturing plant
way back in 1929.
Originally Ferrari had no interest in building road automobiles- or cars for use outside
of a race track- and focused exclusively on building the finest racing cars that a wealthy
gentleman racer could afford.
With the outbreak of the second world war, Ferrari left the world of race cars briefly,
and created a manufacturing company that specialized in building machine tools and aircraft parts.
Unable to resist the old urge to build fast cars though, Ferrari had a prototype built,
the Tipo 815.
Unfortunately due to the world at large being at war, the Tipo's premier race was largely
ignored.
Eventually Ferrari's factory would be bombed by the allies, and after the war it was rebuilt
to focus on regular automobiles.
Enzo Ferrari grudgingly agreed to build commercial cars, but only to fund his beloved racing
team, Scuderia Ferrari.
This racing team would go on to be the most successful in history, winning numerous Grand
Prix events and fueling the legend of the Ferrari name.
Soon, Ferrari started building luxury sports automobiles, and thanks to the success of
its racing team, was able to charge a hefty premium- a practice that lasts to this day.
So the first answer as to why Ferraris are so expensive should be immediately obvious.
When you're buying a Ferrari, a large part of the cost goes towards you in effect licensing
the legendary Ferrari name for your personal life.
Ferrari is a global status symbol, and when you buy a Ferrari it doesn't matter what street
in the world you drive it on- everyone who sees it will instantly know that you have
a ton of cash and probably very little personality.
But hey, you don't need personality when you've got the cash to drive a Ferrari around.
You may not be a legendary race car driver with nerves of steel, but once you're behind
the wheel of a Ferrari none of that will matter.
You'll immediately join the ranks of the most elite race car drivers and mysterious international
spies, and probably end up wrecking your brand new Ferrari like a disturbingly large number
of drivers do.
That's the other thing about Ferraris, they are known as supercars for a reason, and pack
more horsepower into a vehicle than any civilian in the world actually needs.
The 2016 Ferrari LaFerrari- which we feel is a highly redundant name- clocks in at a
whopping 950 horsepower, and can accelerate from zero to sixty in 4.8 seconds, which is
perfect for destroying your vehicle on a guardrail like a driver in England recently did.
Compare that with a much more economical Toyota Camry which ranges from 203 to 206 horsepower
and you can see why Ferrari itself often warns against inexperienced drivers purchasing their
vehicles.
The second reason why Ferraris are so expensive, is that they are very unique cars.
When you have a global brand name like Ferrari that fetches hundreds of thousands of dollars
per car, you don't need to mass produce your vehicle.
In fact if Ferrari started mass producing its supercars, its total brand value would
plummet, because it's just not cool to have the same toy a million other people have.
Ferrari owners are not just buying artificial personalities with their car, but they're
buying into elite exclusivity, and being exclusive is really the only way to one-up your neighbors
in the lofty world of the one percent.
Normal cars will see production numbers that run in the millions, and that's what helps
make the miracle of horseless transportation a reality for the unwashed masses, allowing
them to run their errands like buying beets and... farming dirt?
We're not really sure what peasants do with their time to be honest.
Ferraris though see production numbers that are a fraction of that, and this skyrockets
their price.
Toyota Camrys for instance saw sales of around 34,000 vehicles in one month alone in 2018-
compare that with the 1,315 total Ferrari F40s that were ever built.
The Ferrari 348tb saw a four year production run of 2,895 units, and the Ferrari 360 Spider
had a five year production run of 7,500 units.
Considering that each Toyota Camry costs around $20,000, depending on year and upgrades, while
a Ferrari starts at $260,000 for a Ferrari Spider and can get as high as $600,000 for
a Ferrari F40, and you can see that Ferrari definitely is making a healthy profit off
each car.
They may not mass-market the way that regular automobile manufacturers do, but then again
they don't need to and enjoy their status as a niche, high-status brand.
Another difference between a Ferrari and a normal car which drives up the cost is how
they are made.
Normal cars made for normal people are made in large factories and on long assembly lines,
where machines put together the cars piece by piece, one after the other- a soulless
and monotonous 24-hours-a-day-seven-days-a-week operation that perfectly mirrors the empty
meaningless existence of the car's future owners.
Ferraris on the other hand are hand-crafted, each part of the vehicle built by master craftsmen
using only the finest machine tools.
Each Ferrari is a labor of love, a celebration of the incredible talent of each individual
master craftsmen that took part in its construction, and those master craftsmen get paid very well.
Certainly a lot better than the robot that built your dumb car.
Lastly, the reason that Ferraris are so expensive is because, well, they can be.
Despite the staggering price tag and the ever-increasing number of dead Ferrari drivers scraped off
the sides of the freeway, demand for Ferraris is skyrocketing.
The ranks of the global one percent are growing, and not because suddenly we're living in a
world with an equitable economic system for all people, but because individuals are rising
around the world who are quickly hoovering up wealth into fewer and fewer hands.
This means that more people around the globe desperately need to prove how superior they
are to you, and to their fellow elite one percenters- and what better way to do that
than to show off the new mistress, or because divorces are so expensive, a brand new Ferrari!
That's right, Ferrari can pretty much just set its own price and rich people will beg
Ferrari for the opportunity to buy one of their supercars.
When money is no object, then the only thing that matters is status, and it's hard to beat
the status of owning a Ferrari.
Just watch literally any rap video.
Of course you could use all that wealth to boost your status as a great humanitarian,
or perhaps a patron of science or the arts and invest hundreds of thousands in causes
that actually helps yourself and other people- but that stuff's for nerds, and no way is
it ever going to score you your third mistress.
Would you ever buy a Ferrari?
What other car would you buy if you had the cash?
Tell us in the comments!
Then go watch “Why Are Rolex Watches So Expensive?”
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