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Tag: Ferrari

  • Sir Jony Ive’s Firm Partnering With Ferrari

    Sir Jony Ive is one of the most successful product designers in the world, and will now be working with Ferrari, one of the most iconic auto makers.

    Ive worked at Apple for years, designing some of the company’s most iconic and successful designs. He worked closely with CEO Steve Jobs, and the pair seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of ideas and inspiration.

    Following his departure from Apple, Ive founded his own design firm, LoveFrom. The company has entered a multi-year collaboration with Ferrari, as well as the Agnelli family’s Exor N.V. holding company.

    The first expression of this new partnership will bring together Ferrari’s legendary performance and excellence with LoveFrom’s unrivalled experience and creativity that has defined extraordinary world changing products. Beyond the collaboration with Ferrari, LoveFrom will explore a range of creative projects with Exor in the business of luxury.

    As part of the deal, Ive will join Exor’s Partners Council, aimed at sharing ideas and exploring possible business opportunities.

    “In building great companies, we also believe in building great partnerships,” said John Elkann, Chairman and Chief Executive of Exor and Chairman of Ferrari. “Soon after LoveFrom was founded we began to talk with Jony and Marc about opportunities to combine their world-renowned creativity with ours, in complementary and incremental ways. Ferrari represents a first, exciting chance to do great things together as we build our future. I’m also delighted that Jony is joining our Partners Council where we look forward to benefitting from his uniquely valuable perspectives.”

    “We have been friends with John for many years and are great admirers of his insight and vision,” LoveFrom’s Ive and Marc Newson said in a statement. “We are thrilled to be embarking on such an important, long term collaboration with Ferrari and more broadly Exor. As Ferrari owners and collectors, we could not be more excited about collaborating with this extraordinary company and in particular with the design team expertly led by Flavio Manzoni. We see some uniquely exciting opportunities working together which we believe will yield important and valuable work.”

  • Ferris Bueller Glass House Sells for $1.06 Million

    The glass and steel house featured in the 1986 iconic film, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, finally sold after being on the market for more than five years.

    According to real estate brokerage Coldwell Banker Previews International, the beyond-cool, two-story home located in the Highland Park area of Chicago sold for $1.06 million.

    One would imagine the house — designed by James Speyer and David Haid — would sell quickly but apparently the downward trend in the real estate market in the past few years delayed the sale of the house.

    Craig Hogan, director of Coldwell Banker Previews International, the brokerage’s luxury division, said the house sold at half the original listing price of $2.3 million.

    The Ben Rose Home that Hogan describes as “two glass cubes that are positioned over a ravine,” is often featured as one of the most interesting homes in the Chicago area.

    “You have to want to live there,” Hogan said. “Fortunately, we found a couple who do — they’re in love with that style.”

    The house was featured as a garage holding a Ferrari in the John Hughes film.

    In the film, Ferris (Matthew Broderick) and his friend Cameron decide to play hooky from school, steal the car and take it for a joyride around Chicago. They later crash the Ferrari into the house.

    Image via YouTube

  • Ferrari F14 Could Be A Win For Ferrari Racing

    Life in the fast lane is competitive and nobody likes to be second best. Ferrari recently unveiled a new formula one race car, the F14 T, that they hope will make them a winner. Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen helped unveil the new car on Saturday and the name of the car was chosen by an online vote.

    The F14 T is powered by a 1.6 liter, turbo V6 power engine and has a unique look. Alonso and Raikkonen are hoping that this new car has what it takes to help them take first place. In the last four years, Alonso has placed second three times and fourth once. Raikkonen has previously raced with Lotus, but has done well, scoring third and fifth place in the last two years.

    Together, Alonso and Raikkonen may be unstoppable, especially with the new car.

    “Are we the strongest team? We hope to be,” said Raikkonen. “We have the desire to win but only time will tell if we can bring the title back to Ferrari.”

    Ferrari will start testing the new formula one car at Jerez in Spain this week. The online vote that chose the name for the car had over a million ballots. According to Ferrari, 1,123,741 ballots came in and F14 T won with 32.9 percent of the votes from 208 countries. The T stands for turbo and the F14 stands for Ferrari and the year it was made.

    Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali said, ”It’s nice to know the name of the car has been chosen by our fans. The amazing number of votes shows just how popular Ferrari has always been and this will be, as always, a further impetus for us to do well this year.”

    What do you think of the new Ferrari and its name?

    Image via YouTube.

    January 26, 2014

  • Schumacher’s Helmet Camera Given to Investigators

    Michael Schumacher’s helmet camera has been given to investigators following a serious skiing accident in the French Alps last week. Authorities are hoping it will answer a host of questions about the fall that ended with the former Formula One driver fighting for his life in a Grenoble, France hospital.

    The investigation is necessary to determine responsibility in the accident for insurance purposes.

    In response to rumors that Schumacher’s family was reluctant to give the helmet-mounted camera to authorities, his manager Sabine Kehm has said:

    “Michael’s helmet camera was voluntarily given to the investigating authorities by the family. That this should have been done against the wishes of the family is untrue.”

    The camera, a GoPro model with a 170-degree wide angle lens, may or may not provide the answers investigators are looking for. When Schumacher fell, he hit his head against a rock so hard that his helmet split. Even if the camera did film Schumacher’s descent down the ski slope, the images may have been damaged by the impact of the fall.

    “That does not mean that Michael was traveling at high speed. He was not too fast,” Kehm told reporters.

    According to Edouard Bourgin, an accident claims specialist, “There could have been a catapult effect that explains the violence of the shock, even in the absence of excessive speed.”

    Schumacher, who is regarded by many as the most successful Formula One driver in history, was backcountry skiing with his 14 year-old son and a group of friends at the time of the fall.

    Schumacher and his family typically make spending Christmas, New Year’s and his birthday at their home in the Meribel ski resort an annual tradition.

    Schumacher turned 45 on Friday. As he lay in a medically-induced coma surrounded by family, loyal Ferrari fans held a silent vigil outside the Grenoble hospital, carrying a banner reading “Schumi, all our thoughts for you and your family.”

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Ferrari Breaks Record With $27 Million Sale

    What would you do with $27.5 million dollars? If that answer is to purchase a Ferrari, then you are not alone. More often than not, this coveted vehicle serves as a luxury that few can afford. In Monterey, California, a 1967 red Ferrari convertible sold for 27.5 million dollars at an auction. This legendary sale is the first time a motor vehicle has been sold at a public auction in the United States for such a price; however, other highly-priced vehicle auctions have happened recently. Last month at an auction in Great Britain, a 1954 Mercedes-Benz race car model sold for nearly 30 million dollars.

    The Ferrari 275 GTB/4 NART Spider, not surprisingly known for its record-breaking speed, has a 300-horsepower V12 engine. The powerful engine is just one of the many characteristics that makes this car special. This vehicle could quantify as a limited edition since only ten were made.

    The original owner of the vehicle was Eddie Smith, founder of National Wholesale Company, who passed away six years ago. Since that time the vehicle remained in the family while being stored in an airplane hangar. Eddie Smith, Junior, the son of the original purchaser, shared his reason for deciding to auction the vehicle. “In my mind it’s sort of been imprisoned for those six years,” he said.

    The final bid was 25 million dollars; however, the auction house charges a 10 percent commission, which raises the overall ending amount to 27.5 million dollars.

    Anyone who sees the Ferrari as just a car misses the magic of memories behind the vehicle. Eddie Smith, Junior, said, “This is a bittersweet moment for us. Ferraris came and went, but this one never went, thank God. We enjoyed it as a family for 45 years.”

    While many expect to hear about a Ferrari breaking records for speed capabilities, this unique auction proves that this vehicle is able to break other records as well.

  • Luxury Brands Have Highest Google+ Brand Engagement

    Google+ users apparently have some champagne tastes. A new survey from Simply Measured, a social media analytics firm, reveals that luxury brands like Ferrari, GUCCI, and Burberry rank the among highest among the Interbrand Top 100 brands on Google+ when it comes to consumer engagement.

    These types of surveys show that not every big brand is diving in head first to the Google+ pool as only 64% of the Interbrand 100 even have Google+ brand pages. Nike and Xerox, which are household names of brands if there ever were one, just launched their respective Google+ pages this past quarter. One of the reasons that more brands may begin to gravitate to Google+ is because, whether people like it or not, Google is trying to wrangle in as many people as possible, therefore increasing the size of the consumer pool that brands can have access to. For example, in the previous quarter, there was a 138% increase in circles across all pages, which Simply Measured says indicates that brands are becoming more active while consumers continue to get comfortable with the environs of Google+.

    For some reason, Google+ is the place to go if you’re in the automotive industry. By wide lengths, automotive bands blow away all other industries in a comparison of Google+ circle size. Ferrari alone is listed in 730,831 Google Circles (it’s actually gone up to 746,345 since this study was polished and sent out), which is more than what most other industries have combined.

    Ferrari has figured out some magic formula for social media engagement. The company’s presence on Google+ is indisputably dominant, and over on Facebook it’s not doing too shabby, either. In fact, the top five brands in terms of number of fans are all automobile brands (Ferrari ranks #2 among them). If that’s any indication, then every industry should figure out what strange psychological hook automotive companies have in our collective conscience and take notes because obviously it’s got a powerful tug to it.

    Simply Measured CEO Adam Schoenfeld expects that as Google+ continues to grow, more brands will adopt to the social network as a means to engage consumers. “Based on this most recent quarter, luxury and automotive brands are clearly finding Google+ to be an effective way to connect with consumers,” he said. “It will be interesting to watch the data unfold as we near the one-year anniversary of the platform.”

    <a href=Google+ Top Consumer Brands” src=”http://cdn.ientry.com/sites/webpronews/article_pics/googleplustopbrands.png” title=”Google+ Top Consumer Brands” class=”aligncenter” width=”616″ height=”288″ />

    Top Industries on <a href=Google+” src=”http://cdn.ientry.com/sites/webpronews/article_pics/topcircles.png” title=”Top Industries on Google+” class=”aligncenter” width=”100%” />

    Concerning the first table, you’ll see that Google ranks as the #10 brand when it comes to the Circle tally. That almost seems a little unfair because of course Google, with its legion of Google+ accounts, would be among the highest brands, never mind the fact that Google+ is a Google enterprise.

    I digress. However, speaking of Google’s appearance on that list, here’s a funny bit of trivia: even though Google has a bazillion Google+ accounts for its bazillion services, impossibly, H&M managed to out-post Google by quite a margin. In other words, H&M is on an all-out onslaught across Google+ to get their user engagement up, which appears to be a successful strategy given the company’s high ranking.

    Top <a href=Google+ Brands by Posts” src=”http://cdn.ientry.com/sites/webpronews/article_pics/hmblast.png” title=”Top Google+ Brands by Posts” class=”aligncenter” width=”555″ height=”541″ />

    H&M: keeping you fashionable for less on Google+.

    Here’s the full chart of the brands included in Simply Measured’s survey.

    Google+ Top Brand Pages” class=”aligncenter” width=”100%” />

  • Google, Apple Execs Meet with Ferrari CEO

    Google, Apple Execs Meet with Ferrari CEO

    Ferrari President and Chairman Luca di Montezemolo was in the San Francisco bay area over the weekend to give a speech at Stanford, and met up with Apple CEO Tim Cook and “heads of Google” for some exclusive face time. While it is not clear what all the brass was discussing, di Montezemolo shed some light on the present goings-on regarding Ferrari, during his presentation for MBA students – and compared his company’s business model to Apple’s – citing that both companies’ core values are “attention to the brand, exclusivity, attention to the people, attention to the environment and control from a central location,” which are integral to growth and success.

    di Montezemolo also noted a shared, core “passion for product,” and went on say that “Vision is something crucial for your people – Give them clear goals, clear priorities and give everyone the possibility to grow up [internally] – When you’ve got a leader in a company like Steve Jobs, people have big respect and big gratitude for what he’s done.”

    Other tidbits from di Montezemolo’s speech include a mention Ferrari’s new V12 hybrid supercar which might be out late this year, advances in its patented Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS) – and the executive went on to take a jab at German competitor Porsche, calling their cars “perfect and cold,” as compared to Ferrari’s classic hot red. di Montezemolo’s also pointed out that though he thinks the Chevy Volt is a good concept, Ferrari will plainly not be producing a fully electric car – or an SUV, like the new Lamborghini Urus, for that matter.

    di Montezemolo, who’d arrived to the University’s View From the Top summit in a $330,000 Ferrari 458 Italia, closed his speech by adding, “I’m not here to sell. I’m here to let you dream.” In related news, it is not clear if Apple CEO Tim Cook now considers iOS to be the Ferrari of operating systems. Had to.

  • Kobe Bryant Buys a New Ferrari Italia

    Kobe Bryant Buys a New Ferrari Italia

    As if you needed another example of how your life sucks compared to professional athletes, who get paid millions doing exactly what they love. According to TMZ, Kobe (pictured right, in his wind resistant driving mask… i kid) has purchased a Ferrari 458 Italia for $329,000! To make matters worse, he purchased the car in full. No lease for the NBA star, who pulls $25 million a season in salary alone. It’s over double that figure when you take into account endorsement deals.

    We all remember when Kobe dropped $4 million on an “apology ring” to ex-wife Vanessa. She took $75 million in the divorce. That’s just scratch to Kobe these days. Look at this beauty:

    (image)

    The Italia 458 debuted July 2010, a little under two years ago. By September of that year, they were all recalled due to a flaw in the wheel arc assembly that caused them to suddenly burst into flames! I only say this to give you a little comfort, in case you are kicking yourself over your lack of athletic talent.

    (image)@joshuapmonroe
    Joshua Monroe    I wish I could walk into a Ferrari dealer and purchase a car in-full with a check a la Kobe Bryant.(image) 5 hours ago via web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    (image)@LAmaleCA
    VerIfied 1 Good Guy!    KOBE BRYANT SPENDING $329,000 ON HIS NEW CAR IS LIKE someone who makes $50,000 spending $658 on something.(image) 15 hours ago via web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    (image)@shmdy
    erik schmidt    Kobe Bryant now drives my favorite car.(image) 21 hours ago via Tweetbot for iOS ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    (image)@emily_nicoletta
    emilynicoletta    “@teamKB24: Kobe Bryant owns a new car: Ferrari 458 Italia (329,000 $) #KobeSystem” @cmedaglia22 I wanna marry himmmmmmm!!!(image) 2 hours ago via Twitter for BlackBerry® ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto