Ferrari vehicles launched from the middle of the decade — starting potentially with the company’s first electric vehicle — could have elements fashioned by a pair of world-renowned British and Australian industrial designers.
Overnight Ferrari announced a “long term, multi-year collaboration with Sir Jony Ive and Marc Newson at the creative collective LoveFrom”.
It’s unclear what Ive, Newson and the LoveFrom team will be doing with Ferrari, whether it’s car interior and exteriors, accessories or something else.
“As Ferrari owners and collectors, we could not be more excited about collaborating with this extraordinary company and in particular with the design team expertly led by Flavio Manzoni,” Ive and Newson said in a prepared statement.
In addition to Ferrari, LoveFrom will “explore a range of creative projects with Exor in the business of luxury.”
Exor is the holding company owned by the powerful Agnelli family, and it controls 23 per cent of Ferrari’s shares and has a 14.4 per cent stake in Stellantis.
LoveFrom was formed in 2019 by Ive and Australian industrial design Marc Newson.
It’s super-secretive, and has no online presence whatsoever. Aside from Apple, Ferrari and Exor, it’s unknown which other firms LoveFrom has contracts with.
In a 2014 interview with Time, Ive said it was his childhood love of cars that made him want a career in design.
He checked out a number of automotive design courses, including the one at the Royal College of Art.
“The classes were full of students making vroom! vroom! noises as they drew,” he told the magazine. Turned off, he enrolled for an industrial design degree at Newcastle Polytechnic.
Working at the consultancy Tangerine, Ive designed toilets, microwave ovens, toothbrushes, amongst other things. Most critically, though, one of the company’s clients was Apple, and he helped the firm design the Powerbook laptop.
Apple lured him across the Atlantic in 1992, but those years were the darkest in the company’s history as its computers struggled against Intel-based PCs running Microsoft Windows, and the firm struggled to engineer its way out of trouble, with the Newton PDA being a notable flop.
Ive nearly quit several times, but was elevated to senior vice president in charge of industrial design not long after Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1996.
The firm’s fortune began to turn when it garnered critical and commercial success with the original iMac. Launched in 1998, it featured an eye-catching translucent colour body designed by Ive.
The minimalist designs for the subsequent iPod, iPhone, iPad and Mac ranges all played a key role in making Apple the powerhouse it is today.
He left Apple in 2019 to start LoveFrom with Marc Newson.
Both Newson and Ive have a collection of supercars and luxury cars, including vehicles from Aston Martin, Bentley, Lamborghini and Ferrari.
Sydney-born Newson graduated from the Sydney College of Arts in 1984, and made his name in the world of furniture design.
Newson designed the retro-futuristic Ford 021C concept (above) that debuted at the 1999 Tokyo motor show.
He began working as a consultant with Apple in 2014, and was involved in the design of the first Apple Watch.
