Ferrari:

Ferrari’s entire business model is built around making rich people feel poor.

Not metaphorically. Contractually.

You want a Ferrari. You have the money for a Ferrari.

Ferrari looks at your bank account, looks at you and says: not yet.

You have to buy a cheaper one first. Hold it for a year. Attend some events. Look enthusiastic. Not flip it. Then, possibly, Ferrari will consider letting you have the car you actually wanted.

Floyd Mayweather, a man who has won world titles and earned roughly $1 billion from boxing, sold his Ferrari too soon. He was blacklisted. Ferrari has a contract clause that prohibits reselling within the first year of ownership.

Mayweather ignored it.

Ferrari, makes approximately 13,000 cars a year, sat down and decided that one of the most famous sportsmen on earth had failed the vibe check.

This is a company generating €6.68 billion in revenue.

There is a word for what Ferrari is selling and it’s not “car.” In 2015 Sergio Marchionne told investors to stop thinking of Ferrari as an automotive business and start thinking of it as Hermès with wheels.

Between 2019 and 2024, Ferrari barely changed how many cars it made. Net profit per car nearly doubled. Revenue went from €3.76 billion to €6.68 billion. No new factory. No volume push.

Just Ferarri continuing to be unhelpful.

The 250 GTO is where it gets genuinely strange. Ferrari built 36 of them. In 1962. By 2023, each one was worth approximately $70 million. That is not a car valued at $70 million because it goes fast. It’s valued at $70 million because there are 36 of them and there will never be 37.

Ferrari understood that the moment you can get one easily, customers want one slightly less.

The LaFerrari Aperta was 210 units at $3.9 million each. It sold out before Ferrari announced it publicly.

The people who got allocation letters didn't know what they were buying until after they had agreed to buy it.

Ferrari’s CEO was asked about customers waiting months for delivery. He said: “They will enjoy it more.”

He was right. And he knew he was right. And he said it with the confidence of a man who has never once worried about customer churn.

The thing about premium pricing is that almost every business thinks they’re doing it. They put the price up 15%, write a press release about “elevating the brand experience” and wonder why it doesn’t stick.

Ferrari spent 70 years building a brand that makes the price believable. The waitlist. The allocation committee. The blacklist. The invitation letter.

The client hierarchy that means your first Ferrari is essentially a job interview for your second.

You cannot decide to run Ferrari’s pricing strategy.

The strategy only works because Enzo built the conditions in 1947.

Most companies put the prices up. Nothing changes. They put them back down and call it a “response to market conditions.”

Ferrari didn't. They were too busy telling Floyd Mayweather he wasn’t welcome back.