Eye on Design: Lambo/Ferrari Role Reversal?

by Gunnar Heinrich ::: Ferrari v. Lamborghini

RICHARD Wolf and I have been having a discussion lately on Italian car design.

Loyal to his E39 generation frosty blue M5, Richard’s quick to call a spade what it is and even quicker to pounce on what he sees as bad design. When his baby was in the shop for cosmetic touch ups recently, he shared his displeasure in having to bear the weight of driving a retrotastic Dodge Challenger, “the essence of cheap,” he said.

Sorry to confirm, he was right about the Challenger.

And he’s right about what he sees as the trend in Lamborghini and Ferrari design. To Richard’s keen eye, it seems the two car makers have switched roles. Thirty years ago, the Lamborghini Countach was wild and wildly flamboyant to its core. Complicated, over-the-top design that was more provocative than beautiful was Lambo’s raison d’être. NACA ducts met Stealth bomber wings. It’s as though Lambo had an inside guy in the US Airforce.

Ferrari, on the other hand, was the quintessence of restraint. Symphonic, yet subtle curves were the Boxer’s forte. And even the wild Testarossa made certain geometric sense in its iconic horizontal air slats and gently wedged profile. Ferrari was wild, yet paradoxically the more conservative of the two exotics.

Today, German management at Lamborghini has rerouted and trained the raging bull on being both sharp, clean, almost too efficient. Consider the Gallardo, a masterpiece of minimalist edge and clean surfacing. Ditto for the Murcielago and even the wildly imaginative Reventon – whose cleaved angles are all brilliantly purposed.

Ferrari on the other hand has grown fat- as if overly content with its own largesse. No longer lean, contemporary Ferraris seem like heavier GTs that are taking an ungainly focus on creature comforts. Taking their eyes off the prize as it were, the classically beautiful lines are gone for bold but ultimately tone deaf styling cliches.

It’s as though Maranello’s external sheetmetal seems oddly at the mercy of wind tunnel shaping and the whims of auto stylists who’ve abandoned taste.

The “low-cost” California is emblematic of this shaky route to excess at the expense of beauty. It’s high, fussy boot with vertical quad exhausts recalls not so much Ferrari as it does Fiat.

In another thirty years, if we’re still driving exotics, it’ll be interesting to note whether Ferrari and Lamborghini maintain their current trends. For now, we have to marvel at the role reversal.