Gone are the days when owning a car was every young man’s dream. According to Ferrari, the world’s most wanted sports car is today less appealing to the younger generation.
Speaking to Arabian Business at the regional debut of Ferrari’s electric supercar the SF 90 Stradale, Enrico Galliera said the brand is worried about the lack of interest from millennials who don’t want to drive.
“Generally speaking, the younger generation is less interested in cars. The younger generation doesn’t want to drive. If you were to ask me when I was 18 years old, what is your dream? It was to have a car. If you ask a millennial today, what is your dream? It’s not to have a car. It’s maybe to have the new generation of a device or the possibility to connect to someone. So there is a general trend that is moving away from the car, which is very worrying,” said the chief marketing & commercial officer at Ferrari NV and senior vice president-Sales of Ferrari SpA.
More sharing, less caring
The dwindling interest from younger clients is partially due to the rise of the sharing economy, according to Galliera, whereby owning a car is becoming more expensive and less flexible.
“My feeling whenever I talk with this [younger] generation is that owning a car, especially if you live in big cities, is becoming expensive and difficult because you don’t know where to park and sometimes you’re not using it. So the shared economy is helping a lot, [because] if you need to commute in a city centre, you rent a car.
“Number two is people are moving even more than before and your needs are changing – tonight I want to go out with my companion or my wife and I need a nice sports car; tomorrow I want to go on holiday with my friends and we are seven so I need a van; the day after tomorrow I’m going out with my kids and I need a four seater. This change of need… is triggering lack of interest of owning something in that situation,” he said.
Meet the family
But while millennials are less intrigued by cars than the older generations, they’re still interested in emotional experiences such as the thrill that comes from driving a Ferrari, Galliera said.
“I believe the younger generation is looking for something else which is less a car and more some kind of service; that’s what I learned whenever I talked with this [younger] generation, but again when you offer something that’s delivering an emotion, which can be a game or a car for them, they immediately get interested.
“I have two sons, 14 and 16, and they are addicted to gaming and mobiles. If I tell them to come watch a basketball game with me, they say they’re not interested. But when I tell them I’m test driving the new Ferrari, let’s go have a ride, they jump immediately. So it’s just a matter of finding a trigger that moves the interest. Even in the younger generation, there is this opportunity to do something that gives emotion,” he said.
It is for that reason that Ferrari organises familial activities with car owners and their children to keep the interest running across generations.
“Driving a Ferrari is different that driving a car. Many of our client’s sons or daughters come closer to the car and they have fun. Something quite interesting that the clients tell me is, they say, ‘you know Enrico as soon as my kids turn 16, 17, 20-years-old, we lose them. Whatever we offer them to do, they don’t want to do with their papa and mama, they want to do it with their friends’.
“But if I’m offering them to come spend the weekend on a track driving a Ferrari, they immediately jump on it and they’re so happy about it, so for me Ferrari is a way to be connected with my kids. That’s why we organise a lot of father and son, father and daughter activities, because they can share an experience and then these young guys get excited about driving a Ferrari because it’s not commuting from home to work, driving your car, it’s more about something else… it’s a way to get an emotion,” Galliera said.
While it may not be every young man’s dream to own a Ferrari today, it may end up turning the prancing horse into an even more exclusive brand, said Galliera.
“To be honest, as far as Ferrari is concerned, we are not selling millions of cars. We are selling a few thousand cars all over the world… So I think the automotive industry is facing a huge change and the interest of the younger generation is much less, but from a certain standpoint I think it’s even better for Ferrari because you have less of an opportunity to enjoy driving a car.
“So driving a Ferrari would be even more incredible for a small portion of people who want to have the car. We don’t need millions of people. We just need hundreds per year,” he said.
1,000 horsepower
Galliera was in Abu Dhabi in line with the regional debut of the Plug-In Hybrid SF90 Stradale supercar which runs on a mid-mounted twin-turbocharged, 3.9-litre V8 engine as well as three electric motors, delivering a whopping combined output of 986bhp.
The brand first ventured into hybrid technology in 2013 with the limited build LaFerrari, but is planning on launching a fully electric Ferrari after 2022.
Unlike its predecessor, the SF 90’s production will not be capped, and prices are estimated around the AED2.5 million mark compared to LaFerrari’s AED4m, though final prices will be confirmed next summer before deliveries begin across the Middle East.
Follow us on
