Ferrari’s first fully electric production car just fetched a jaw-dropping $40 million. But let’s be clear from the jump: this was not some regular Luce rolling off the line and clearing the block at that number. The car that sold Saturday night at RM Sotheby’s Monterey auction during Monterey Car Week was “Chassis 0” the first production unit of the Luce program, a one-off configured through Ferrari’s exclusive Tailor Made division and offered strictly for charity.
The hammer price of exactly $40 million more than 36 times the roughly $1.1 million pre-sale estimate and about 62 times the standard Luce’s approximate $640,000 list price. Buyer’s premium was waived, so the sum is entirely donated to The Ferrari Foundation, a 501(c)(3) that funds educational initiatives. The car is not delivered immediately; it is sent back to Maranello for final assembly and is due to arrive at the new owner’s house in the first quarter of 2027, having been optimized for U.S. regulations.
This value of $40 million breaks the record as the costliest new vehicle ever auctioned off, surpassing the earlier record held last year by a modified Ferrari Daytona SP3, which fetched a price tag of $26 million through the identical charity auction process conducted in Monterey. It is, however, not among the highest prices paid for a vehicle through an auction process.
The winner of this high-profile charity auction has been identified as Dr. Herbert “Herbie” Wertheim, an 87-year-old billionaire optometrist and inventor of UV-rejecting lens dye, and a long-time car collector, who had also bought the previously mentioned Daytona SP3 for $26 million last year. The doctor has a history of making philanthropic purchases of this scale.
The Luce itself remains Ferrari’s most polarizing modern product. Unveiled in May 2026, it is the company’s first five-seat, four-door fully electric grand tourer, designed primarily with LoveFrom, the studio founded by former Apple design chief Sir Jony Ive and Marc Newson. Four independent electric motors deliver more than 1,000 horsepower, with claimed 0–100 km/h acceleration in 2.5 seconds, a top speed around 310 km/h, a 122-kWh battery, and roughly 530 km of range. Chassis 0 wears a unique Madreperla Semi-Gloss finish an iridescent mother-of-pearl paint that shifts from green to violet with the light paired with a bespoke Perla Le Mans metallic leather interior and custom details.
Classic Ferrari enthusiasts have described the bubble design as a radical departure from the marque’s heritage of sporting automobiles. The auction sale has neither rewritten that discussion nor repriced all Luces. What it does indicate is the continued value of historical first frame, personalization, and charity sale without reserve. In other words, what $40 million bought was a combination of rarity, history, and a significant charitable donation rather than the market price of an average electric Ferrari.
