The supercilious price includes a Marc Newson–designed display case inspired by a Ferrari V-12 race engine.
It is hard to imagine that any more flattering words could be penned about Enzo Ferrari and his renowned cavallino rampante. A beautiful new limited-edition digest, from German publishing house Taschen, is set to become the most highly anticipated Ferrari reflective by far.
Modestly named Ferrari, this 514-page masterpiece (limited to a run of 250) will feature a collector’s Art Edition, each costing an impressive R428, 000. For this seemingly pushy figure, the purchaser gets the red leather-bound and hand-stitched book sealed off in a remarkable aluminum case inspired by the Testarossa red-head valve covers of a Ferrari V-12 engine.
It’s designed to resemble the hand-formed serpentine exhaust pipes of a vintage Ferrari 12-cylinder racecar. Both designs are the work of Marc Newson, well-known Australian industrial designer and vintage sports-car racer. Newson’s vast catalog of work includes iconic designs for Qantas Airlines, Riva, Apple, Louis Vuitton and Ikepod watches.
Each of the 250 copies of the Art Edition will come personally autographed by Piero Lardi Ferrari, the corporation’s vice chairman and the remaining living son of the il Commandatore. Other signatures comprise those of John Elkann, Ferrari’s current chairman, and the late Sergio Marchionne, who was the CEO of Ferrari and parent company Fiat-Chrysler until his unfortunate death in July.
If the R428,000 cost for one of the Art Edition copies is a little unreasonable for your wallet, Taschen is making available a Collector’s Edition version, and each of the 1,697 examples will be priced at R 85 700. These will come with the Marc Newson red-topped aluminum presentation case, but not the stand, and just the Piero Ferrari signature. The total print run for the book, which becomes available in October, will be 1,947—a figure which corresponds to Ferrari’s founding year.
Remarkably, Taschen’s R428, 000 Art Edition version of Ferrari is far from being the most expensive Ferrari book published. That principle goes to the 852-page, 37kg-pound The Official Ferrari Opus presented in 2011. The diamond-encrusted Enzo Diamante edition, featuring the prancing horse logo encrusted with 30 diamonds, came with a quite staggering R 3,9 Million sticker.
