Legend has it that at the height of his company’s Formula One days fighting against newer, lighter British contenders, Enzo Ferrari said: “I build engines and attach wheels to them.”
Such was his disdain for anything not related to the engineering side of the business. Yet with help from independent styling studios at the time, Ferrari also produced some of the most glamorous GT road cars, with bespoke, hand-finished bodies for owners who were limited only by their open chequebooks.
The addition in 2011 of Tailor Made, Ferrari’s in-house atelier, has revived those heady days, with a personal designer on hand to welcome a very select number of clients into its haute-couture studio at the Maranello factory.
Ferrari claims that it can deliver almost anything a customer desires. To provide a teaser for its Middle Eastern clientele, the company has produced five special cars, each a one-off creation based on the FF grand tourer – for one customer in the UAE, plus one each to Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar. This minuscule run is among the most exclusive in the company’s global portfolio.
Using the Italian names of gemstones as its theme, the five cars are Zaffiro (Sapphire) for the UAE, Pietra di Luna (Moonstone) for Saudi Arabia, Cristallo (Crystal) for Bahrain, Topazio (Topaz) for Kuwait and Perla (Pearl) for Qatar. Each is unique and intended to showcase a different side to Ferrari to appeal to well-heeled Middle Eastern owners.
“Using precious gemstones gives you a chance to play with themes that are not based around Formula One,” says Nicola Boari, Ferrari’s head of product marketing.
“Unlike a 458 Italia, for example, you are not recognised as much in the FF, and you will notice that none of these cars are red, so they present a very exclusive side to Ferrari ownership.”
Ferrari claims that the FF lends itself to being personalised more for our region, with its four-seat capacity that has been updated with new rear armchairs for 2015, along with better rear access and the ability to customise its luggage area.
The Ferrari Zaffiro FF built for the UAE features an exclusive, dark-blue, three-layer paint colour not available on any other Ferrari. The colour is designed to represent the waters of the Gulf and is offset by asymmetric white GT stripes stretching its full length.
The Zaffiro’s interior continues the theme of blue, with white highlights placed as a nod to the desert sands that dominate the UAE’s vast open spaces. The polar-white leather has been selected from the close Ferrari ally Poltrona Frau’s interior-furnishing range, and the whole theme spills over to a pristine blue-and-white-trimmed boot area.
Boari was evasive on a price for the cars, as each has been crafted using different materials and consumed varying man-hours – but as a ballpark figure, he says potential owners can expect to pay a premium of about 25 per cent above the FF’s ex-factory retail price of €216,000 (Dh986,033).
“About 90 per cent of Ferraris are bought today with at least one piece of customisation,” says Boari, “so based on this we launched Tailor Made at the Frankfurt [motor] show in 2011, and it’s proven to be a very popular addition for the Middle East. In Tailor Made’s first year, we produced just over 30 cars, and this year we are looking at about 70 orders.”
Flicking through the multitude of carbon-fibre samples and multicoloured leather swatches in the atelier, it seems as if the customer could choose any combination imaginable. But Ferrari’s imagination doesn’t always stretch as far as its buyers’.
“A customer can order virtually any combination of colour and trim imaginable – even alligator skin and denim have been used,” says Boari. “But if someone ordered a sparkly pink Ferrari, we would have to say no, because at the end of the day you could argue that would not be good for Ferrari.”
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