A Conversation With Ferrari’s Chief Design Officer Flavio Manzoni At The Launch Of The Ferrari Luce

Ferrari going electric was always going to be a major moment, but the Ferrari Luce makes it even bigger. Low, wide, and ridiculously futuristic, the Luce is a radical departure from what we’ve come to expect from the Prancing Horse. Specifically, from a brand built on the emotion of sound, speed, and combustion. This is Ferrari’s first fully electric car, a four-door grand tourer, and it is designed to comfortably seat five. The supercar has been designed in collaboration with LoveFrom, a design collective founded by Sir Jony Ive and Marc Newson, who have created a sculptural silhouette shaped through simplification, with styling cues that recall closed forms and pure shapes.​ 

At the helm of Ferrari’s design language is Flavio Manzoni, the visionary Italian architect and Ferrari’s Chief Design Officer, who has shaped some of the brand’s most celebrated modern icons over the last decade and a half. Since joining Ferrari in 2010 as Chief Design Officer, Manzoni has redefined the marque’s aesthetic vocabulary through cars like the LaFerrari, Roma, Purosangue, and Daytona SP3, balancing sculptural purity with aerodynamic precision. With the Luce, his role became even more pivotal, steering Ferrari through an entirely new technological era while ensuring the soul of the Prancing Horse remained intact. Working alongside LoveFrom, Manzoni helped shape a design philosophy that interprets electrification not as a limitation but as a liberation: an opportunity to rethink proportion, space, materiality, and emotion from the ground up. 

At the unveiling of the Ferrari Luce in Rome, Esha Gupta speaks to Flavio Manzoni about the thrill of driving a Ferrari, embracing disruption, and shaping Ferrari’s future alongside LoveFrom. 

Also read: The Ridiculously Futuristic Ferrari Luce Ignites A New EV Era Of Pure Speed 

Esha Gupta: In your eyes, what defines a true Prancing Horse?

Flavio Manzoni: Well, first of all, in my opinion, it is emotion. Emotion in the sense of the thrill of driving a Ferrari, but also the emotion you feel simply by looking at a Ferrari. For me, Ferrari is also a kind of sculptural emotion. The aspect of contemplating its beauty is extremely important. Everything starts from passion, from the dream. After the dream comes imagination, and then the project itself. So ultimately, it is all about emozioni.

Esha Gupta: You’ve worked very hard to set up an internal design studio at Ferrari. Why this collaboration with LoveFrom?

Flavio Manzoni: Ferrari felt the need to follow another path because the idea was to create something truly different, something out of the box. The Luce interprets a radically different technology, especially for Ferrari, and this disruptive shift needed to be reflected in the design as well. That is why involving an external studio like LoveFrom, founded by Jonathan Ive and Marc Newson, became so important. They are masters of design from another world—product design, high-tech design, and so on. They brought a completely different perspective. For several months, we worked together not only on developing a new philosophy, but also a new approach to designing the object itself. LoveForm was given full autonomy in approaching the vehicle’s design. You can see it in the consistency of the car; everything feels organic and connected. If you look closely at the details of the interior, exterior, and interface, they share a unified design language. There is a very clear signature style that defines the Luce through its own identity and philosophy.

Esha Gupta: So, would you say this is a new approach, a new philosophy to the rooted values of Ferrari? 

Flavio Manzoni: Exactly.