If you're hoping for design commentary, why—I don't critique liquid soap dispensers. Stay in your lane, Michael.

If you long for the sort of comfort that only a raucous 12-cylinder-engined Ferrari can provide, find and rescue one from the bosom of its current lover. Your passions are best enjoyed elsewhere. Forget I said anything. Luce? What Luce?

Pour your heart and soul into furthering your relationship to what you think Ferrari is, and it'll be fine. Ferrari is fine.

Everything is fine.

Arguably, if a Ferrari ends up here, it's a bad day for Ferrari. An all-electric Italian super-crossover would be news in any age, but this is the iPhone age, so Ferrari put that guy and his cohort in charge of the entire show, as the sources of my sources say.

An opinion I've long had is that Ferrari exists as a benchmark so that others can hold it up as a goal of image and high performance. Ferrari's core legend is so strong, its competition are spinoffs: Lamborghini, Bizzarrini, ATS. People gave relative unknowns trust and money because they worked at Ferrari.

Working at Ferrari is winning.

Why is this essential to understand? For its competition, winning is sweeter if a Ferrari finishes in second place.

Ford vs. Ferrari is a very different film than, say, Ford vs. Isuzu. Yet here it is. Ferrari is so G.O.A.T. it evolved into an entire HORSE.

I can't begin to imagine asking for the job of designing the first all-electric Ferrari, which sounds simple but…are you high? Nothing is simple anymore. 

Designers Jony Ive and Marc Newson and Ferrari management all knew this, and worked very hard while daydreaming of (I would hope) an outcome opposite to what shot out of the birth canal at mach-Jesus: a weird, pierogi-faced Ferrari.

Weird not because it's electric, or because it has more than two doors, or looks like a Li Auto crossover cursed with a severe peanut allergy. 

Weird because we all expected nothing of Ferrari, and it gave us something, and its betrayal of form stings us. Ferrari used to be safe. Ferrari makes aspirational cars. Now it makes this?

Ferrari owes me nothing, and I expect nothing. Not even beauty, or performance, or five-seat EV crossovers with artfully layered digital touch displays.

I'm convinced: that a massive organization took a chance on outside help of this calibre and came up with a 600 horsepower VHS tape rewinder will eventually give us a documentary. And a book, and hopefully a fictionalized Hollywood version where Ive is played by Tom Hardy, shouting in broken Italian and hurling impossibly perfect laser-cut prototype parts at some poor soul trying to help undo some of the inevitable damage.

If a simple car can hurt your feelings, maybe your relationship to your own feelings is the problem.

The Luce isn't that bad, or good, or weird. It is betrayal of the humanity that beats within Ferrari.

I am a longtime fan, of the alloy bodies, the Challenge Stradales, the prototipos, the surgical patchwork repairs of F1 championship-winning cars, each hand-assembled with the human connective tissue that remains the backbone of Ferrari's mythos as the world's most revered house of high sports car couture, that Enzo built.

We revere il Commendatore, the fearless commander.

We detest il Commodore, the feckless computer.

There's no doubt considerable effort was expended on Luce. What's weird is…I can't see it, yet it's there. Conceptually, literally, lamentably.

A liminal object. A liminal Ferrari. From the iPhone guy and his merry band of do-gooders.

I assure you, they didn't intend to make a weird car, or a Temu Nissan Juke.

Still, my wish is for people to buy them, transforming Luce from weird to familiar.

The elites deserve their own Cybertruck moment.

My wish is for Ferrari to adopt this Duplo design language across its lineup, and bury Enzo's legacy alongside its supercars. Ferrari can go weirder. Ferrari can embrace EVs, and lower prices, and open up a dealership in your town.

Horror: Ferrari can do whatever the hell it, and its shareholders, want it to do.

My feelings may be the problem, but they're still a little hurt.

This Luce, too, shall pass.

Believe it or not, the audacious M200 concept happened under GM's watchful eye, while Lotus was still an authentic sports car manufacturer competing in Formula 1 (before it was cool).

Actually, this car happened during an era where most F1 accounts were a black hole of expenses for every team…and not scoring points made it even worse. Points were only awarded to the top 6, there was no cost cap, and Lotus tended to circulate near the back, far from the (single) world TV feed.

*Note, I'm calling this car a 1991 because that was its first public appearance; 1990 is what the chassis indicates

Top sponsors were few and far between, and commercial payouts slim. Teams were not worth profit-makers.

Still: Lotus soldiered on, racing in F1 while simultaneously developing what generation after generation of car enthusiast begs for: a more affordable sports car, preferably a convertible.

The M100-series Lotus Elan, with pop-up headlights, powered by an Isuzu 4-cylinder engine and front-wheel drive only.

Send.

It:

Duly introduced the same year as the Mazda MX-5, at a price higher than the genre-defining, once-in-a-lifetime competition from the Japanese marque.

Like other former GM brands, Lotus had "investment", investment that all but evaporated when its plans were subjected to market forces, as in: people didn't buy it.

A shame, not only because Lotus managed to take one of Isuzu's most advanced 4-cylinder engines and package them at the front of a sporting car, but because if Lotus had been a Japanese car of that era, the bar would have been easier to clear: a front-drive sporty car, like a Honda Integra, Mitsubishi FTO, or Toyota Curren.

The Elan's engine? Take a Geo Storm GSi's 130 horsepower, 16-valve 4-cylinder engine and add a turbo, for 160 horsepower. This peak version of the Isuzu 4XE1 engine can only be found in the Isuzu Impulse RS, Stylus RS, and Japan market Gemini. (Lesser Isuzu 4X engine variants went to lesser economy cars like the North American Chevrolet Spectrum, which is totally a real car that has nearly become extinct before my eyes.)

Back in the day, I wrote a few stories on this era of ‘tuner’ cars, shows, and Canada’s early drifting scene.

Like it's always been, some cars were beautifully built…some, not so much. Most started with a cheap car and added paint, speakers, a body kit, rims, and some kind of suspension drop. We don't remember those.

We do remember cars like this modified Audi S8, because in the attention economy of show cars, why not start your with one of the best vehicles in the world at the time?

Think about it: when you're building on a car where the doors, hood, and other shut lines are microns-perfect, anything you add can't miss.

Parotech, a back-in-operation French company once known for its alloy wheels (as seen here), was like "Hold our wine," and cut up Neckarsulm's (and Ferdinand Piech's) finest in the most spectacularly forward-thinking way.

Screens.

Do you blame me? Exactly.

What I have done recently, for our mutual “benefit”, is to force myself to learn about Vauxhall, for the purposes of finding and relaying the story of a weird one to you.

To my eyes, Vauxhall was even more boring than the worst from General Motors, because at least the bulk of GM had its roots near enough to Motown, NASCAR, and the U.S. military industrial complex (including NASA engineers), meaning plenty of oddities oozed out from close to the RenCen’s roots. 

Holden came from Australia, Opel from Germany, Saab from Sweden, Vauxhall…the UK.

Not the cool UK, however, Luton, Bedfordshire, where cars were made for people too busy working and living to faff about with anything other than a vehicle that was produced by long-established Vauxhall Motors, with its history as a local manufacturing firm since the 1850s.

I can appreciate the history, and the focus on early long-distance races, Brooklands trials, reliability contests, small rallies, and all of the other motorsport-adjacent things Vauxhall has gotten up to.

I’m not dead: my heart still beats for a white and yellow 1996-era John Cleland BTCC Vectra. The 2005 Vauxhall Zafira VXR? Legend (in its own mind). 

You'll be pleased to know the long arm of GM-Vauxhall extended to Uruguay, and Grumett, where  the mix of models blended polyester-bodied Vauxhalls with dressed-up Isuzus.

That’s fine, it happens, but I’ve noticed it’s when the job becomes more complicated; longer timelines, increased scope, and a fuzzy grasp of what’s required can all increase the complexity of a project (for me).

Improbably, in words shared by myself, Colin Chapman, Strunk & White: “Simplify, then add lightness.”

Cars and copywriting have a category of output where, how do I put this? You know it when you don’t see it. 

Being thrilled by the Citroën 2CVs, Lotuses, Caterhams, and other weird, lightweight cars of the world is a similar sensation to being hooked and forever haunted by a vintage Volkswagen ad that’s somehow one word. And perfect.

All fine and dandy, until the following week when the new manager suggests the one word be, “Orange”, or “Blue” or “Periwinkle”, and an entire line of obnoxious, expensive advertisements is commissioned to turn off customers.

Worse, the small, shoestring budget brands do it too. Unlike the behemoths of industry, new automakers can bleed out and die from one paper cut.

Imagine: striking lightning, being asked to replicate your success, and your follow-up proposal delivers the same or less than before.

Oll korrect, understood…then a few young German engineers design a pure, VW-motivated sports car, then decide to simplify and add lightness to its name…

“What car did you get, it’s so cool!” 

“YES!”

“No, like, who makes this?”

“YES!”

“…you don’t have to be a jerk about it!”

“YES!”

Look, being an incessantly car-obsessed kid, teenager, and young adult was rough in the pre-YouTube days. Ever hear of Liveleak? Napster? Limewire? When videos were 480p at best, and forums such as Swedespeed and Turbobricks had small file upload limits, finding, sharing, linking to, downloading and/or consuming car content was as tedious and time-consuming as it sounds.

(Videos were searched for while I also pored over Volvo specs, most preciously R-Sport information, thankyouverymuch ‘Dave’s Volvo Site’.)

When YouTube arrived, it’s tough to overstate how the video sharing landscape changed. Gone was using clunky video conversion tools to reduce the size of clips to upload, or resorting to using torrents for everything, but we lost a crucial thing in the process.

Only the best videos made the cut, and were re-uploaded to YouTube.

Much of why I become a Volvo enthusiast, and Volvo owner, were these pre-viral videos scattered around the car enthusiast internet. 

Some of the best videos were from the German Volvo tuner, HEICO SPORTIV. More on them in a minute.

In this part of the timeline, I was driving a Volvo and working after school at a small Volvo dealership, working in, clean-up, detailing—then, eventually, making the same money but also helping with the website and assisting the sales staff.

I’m not kidding, it’s possible to find one of these tiny German gems for yourself, and revel in the sumptuous Alcantara-lined interior, Recaro seats that cost as much as some cars, extensive Blaupunkt Hi-Fi components, custom almost-everything Volkswagen Polo that tuning company B+B (now simply BB) — led by Rainer Buchmann — was selling for 45,000 DM. 

Take that money to BMW or Mercedes, and you’d leave with a whole mid-range sedan and plenty of change for any kind of schnitzel dinner your heart desired.

Not to worry: the Polo Paris’ mechanical parts were otherwise stock. And it had optional extras! Brilliant.

Let’s get into it.

Promise, there’s a point to this.

Most known for the title track In The Meantime, I practically wore out my copy of the Spacehog disc, often leafing through the included sleeve of art and track information as it played through.

With hindsight, at that age I no doubt would have imagined myself behind the wheel of this 1994 BMW Fun Car by Tilo Clumpp — truly a resident alien member of the BMW concept car lineage.

It’s not the first asymmetrical car I’ve written about here, and far from the first unicorn, so the Fun Car better have something extra quirky up its sculpted bodywork.

Then, improbably, an Iso crosses your feed. Perhaps you realize that what you thought was a Fiat X1/9 is, sometimes, a Bertone X1/9. Or that Urbanina and Intermeccanica existed at all.

There’s a moment where you can either feel defeated by not knowing (or wanting to know) about niche Italian cars, turn tail and head back into the Ferrari build configurator. 

Or, you push on and explore the world of weird Italian cars, much like you’d hope to explore the universe of Italian cooking.

If you think shopping for penne is tough at your local grocery store, know that some estimates put the total number of pasta varieties above 1,000, and I believe it.

When I say pasta, I’m not including the multitude of sauces or dishes it could appear in. 

Italian car brands? I shrug and would guess into the hundreds.

Francis Lombardi is among them.

Not ready to take the plunge? Here’s that Ferrari configurator: https://carconfigurator.ferrari.com/

Unveiled in the year 2000, after the computers were meant to have stopped operating, the Stola S81 concept is one of those sports cars that will remain unforgettable…yet fly under the radar for all but the most dedicated of car spotters.

This show car is not a car*, but a 1:1 model of what Marcello Gandini and his team wanted to accomplish as a complete reimagining of what a then-contemporary Lancia Stratos would be.

The Citroën 2CV by Luigi Colani, an edible space omelette.

The anti-wedge. A middle finger to whatever digit car blogs have up their asses and in their minds for what’s worthy of Trending, and algorithms, and SEO discoveries. Investors don’t have the testes to test this in market, despite its impressive credentials.

Why now? Why here? Have you died and been buried in a white mock turtleneck sweater?

Yes. Well, in case you’ve been living under a rock, Ferrari hired an iPhone designer on the way to reimagining the classic Mazda Luce as some sort of electric crossover for 2027, and otherwise intelligent people — myself included — were recently sucked into the black hole of commentating on glass-metal-rubber-skeuomorphic aesthetics.

Today. It was today.

Because of this, I’ve kept one of my highly attuned talents-slash-obsessions mostly secret:

I have a talent for finding obscure, borderline unobtainable homologation specials. 

Less in the sense of a Ferrari F40 barn find, more in the vein of this early 2000s Mitsubishi factory racing truck that looks as if it’d happily go all Rocky Balboa on any Ford Raptor that runs its mouth about being “off-road capable”.

Capable, yes. Just like I’m capable of leaving the high dive platform…once. This is why you can take any production off-road vehicle, hand it to an off-road racing professional, and it will be creatively disassembled before sunset.

As a huge company such as Mitsubishi, taking the extra step to build a series of (still road legal depending on where you’re at) racing machines and homologating them for competition is a huge endeavour.

The last thing they’d want? Bad results. Second last thing? Bad reliability — an L200 seen smoking terribly past a group of spectators or breaking key components could be a PR nightmare. 

Really: what do you think of if I put ‘Mercedes’ and ‘Le Mans Mulsanne Straight’ in the same sentence?

I think you’d recall that cartwheel-flipping a vehicle into the trees is a less effective approach to off-roading than upgrading key components for trundling over gnarly terrain in South America.

Let me teach you how to spot more of the under-the-radar homologation specials…