Jay Leno has never been one to shy away from an opinion, and sitting down with Ferrari collector David Lee to talk about the Luce EV, he had plenty of them. Leno’s central point was one that car enthusiasts have wrestled with for a while now. When any iconic brand veers off the path it’s known for, the fans turn on it fast. He drew a comparison to the Corvette community, noting that the moment Chevy dropped the round taillights, Corvette purists were up in arms complaining it no longer felt like a real Corvette. The Ferrari Luce, he argued, is facing the same kind of thing. Ferrari made something different, and different is a hard sell to a fanbase built on tradition.
His criticism of the car itself was more nuanced than a flat-out dismissal. Leno was clear that it isn’t an ugly car. That’s an important distinction. He said the Luce looks like an electric car, just not a Ferrari, which is actually a more cutting observation than calling it outright bad-looking. It’s styled well enough, but it doesn’t carry the visual identity people associate with Maranello.
He also brought up former Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo, who suggested the Ferrari badge should be removed from the car altogether. That’s a striking position coming from someone who ran the company, and Leno seemed to agree with the sentiment behind it.
What it all comes back to, for Leno, is a philosophy about what a car should be. He likes a sports car that commits to being a sports car. Not one that’s also trying to moonlight as a station wagon, or carry school runs, or tick every practical box on a family checklist. The moment a car starts trying to be multiple things at once, it risks being none of them particularly well. The Purosangue is fast, expensive, and impressively engineered. Whether it’s a Ferrari in the way people mean when they say Ferrari is a different question entirely.
