First Ferrari Luce EV sells for $40 million, 36x its estimate
Get the Energy newsletter
Daily energy & climate — solar, EVs, oil, the policy fights and tech bets shaping the transition. Free.
- Ferrari Luce sold for $40 million at RM Sotheby's Monterey auction Saturday night, 36 times its $1.1 million pre-sale estimate and roughly 62 times its €550,000 (~$640,000) retail price.
- The auctioned car is "Chassis 0," the first production Luce — a Tailor Made build with a one-off "Madreperla Semi-Gloss" paint that shifts green to violet and a bespoke Le Mans metallic leather interior replacing black for the first time on a Luce.
- RM Sotheby's ran the sale without reserve and waived the buyer's premium, so the $40 million is both hammer price and donation; the buyer won't take delivery until Q1 2027, with the car returning to Maranello for final assembly first.
- The result crushes Ferrari's previous auction record: a one-off Daytona SP3 sold for $26 million at the same Monterey sale last August — a 54% jump in 12 months — and comes within $8.4 million of the $48.4 million paid for a 1962 250 GTO in 2018.
- The Ferrari Foundation, a 501(c)(3) funding educational programs, receives the full amount, continuing a charity-auction tradition that dates to a $10 million LaFerrari Aperta sold in 2017 for earthquake relief.
- Despite a savaged Rome launch in May, RACE stock dropping on the reveal, former chairman Luca di Montezemolo publicly questioning whether the Ferrari badge belonged on an EV, and Ferrari replacing its marketing chief a month later, the entire 2026 allocation of just under 500 Luce units sold out in under two months before a single customer delivery.
Why it matters: The Luce's $40M hammer came within $8.4M of the all-time car-auction record set by a 1962 250 GTO, even though no customer unit has been delivered and Ferrari's first EV faced a brutal public reception that triggered a stock drop, a public rebuke from its former chairman, and a marketing chief's exit — making the charity windfall both a redemption moment and the steepest year-over-year jump in Ferrari's charity-auction tradition.
Ask SkimNews
