One of the biggest perks of working for an auto manufacturer is the employee discount. From the C-Suite to the assembly line, everyone gets a crack at the company's latest offerings at a special discounted price. Unless you work for Ferrari, that is.
In an interview with Australia's Drive, Ferrari's chief marketing and commercial officer Enrico Galliera laid down yet another of the automaker's infamously stringent rules—company employees are normally forbidden from buying a brand new Ferrari off the factory line.
"The philosophy is that with such limited production and clients waiting so long to get their car, it's not nice if the car is delivered to employees. It is clients first," he said.
It could also be argued that it's "not nice" to send someone a cease-and-desist letter over modifying their Ferrari, but that's neither here nor there. There is one exception, though. As the company's most public-facing employees, Scuderia Ferrari F1 drivers are allowed a new supercar from Maranello—at full price, of course. Maybe that's why there's such hot competition to fill Kimi Raikkonen's allegedly soon-to-be-vacated seat.
We're sure that all those master engineers and technicians at Ferrari are working there for reasons other than the ability to purchase a brand new 812 Superfast, but there's got to be a least a little pang of jealousy watching such forbidden fruit leave the factory every day.
Still, that can't compare to the envy of regular old rich people who are regularly denied the opportunity to purchase the latest limited edition Ferrari. Galliera described the process for "selling" the LaFerrari Aperta—he mailed the company's top 200 clients a box with the car key in it and a note asking if they wanted to buy it sight unseen. All 200 said yes, and everyone else, including noted American Ferrari collector David Lee, was SOL.
"The most difficult part of my job is to say no... At the very beginning you receive applications from people who do not deserve, they simply have the money. 'I am the king of something, so I deserve the car,'" said Galliera. "I say 'Yes, but you are not a Ferrari client.'"
"That's the easy part. Then you have someone who is still a very good customer but is not in the top 200, and I cannot offer him the car. Normally most of them understand… some of them that are not used to hearing 'no' keep asking. The most difficult part of my job is when I join an event and the person is there, and he becomes hard headed, and he locks onto me and keeps asking and asking."
Check out the full interview for more details on the inner workings of the Prancing Horse, including its tenuous plans to raise annual production numbers even further and the no-resale contract those lucky buyers have to sign.