Sleek Racers: How the Ferrari Became the Most Beautiful Sports Car on Earth
Ferrari has been described as, “one of the world’s most recognized brands. Not just car brands—brands, period.” It’s pretty remarkable when you consider that the carmaker renowned for its luxury, speed, and status only makes around 7,000 cars per year.
Ferraris have always been known for their power, utilizing racing technology in street cars. But they aren’t just fast or powerful; they’re also a sight to behold.
The Ferrari brand stands for something special. “The branding and the reputation comes from the quality of the product. They can do that because of the quality of the product and the continuity and history of it. It’s a supercar like no other, really,” said Andrew Nahum, curator of Ferrari: Under the Skin, an exhibition at the Design Museum in London.
Here’s what you need to know about the most beautiful sports car in the world:
The Golden Ratio
Not only does Ferrari have a beloved aesthetic and a reputation for its sleek, elegant-yet-sporty lines, but its top-rated appearance has also been backed up by science. For decades, car enthusiasts have argued about which car was the most beautiful. Now, there’s a clear winner.
Carwow analyzed almost 200 performance vehicles and named Ferrari’s 2019 Monza SP1 as the world’s most beautiful car. This distinction wasn’t the result of polls, voting from experts, or other subjective criteria. Carwow applied the Golden Ratio to the designs of every vehicle they analyzed and found that the retro-futuristic look of the Monza SP1 was the closest to achieving the perfect proportions.
The Golden Ratio is an irrational number that’s prevalent in art, nature, architecture, and design. It’s also been referred to as the golden mean, golden section, and the divine section. It’s approximately 1.618. It’s been simply described as,
“Visually, it is a rectangle, that when cut into a square, results in the remaining rectangle being the same proportion as the original rectangle.”
For hundreds of years, artists as far back as Michaelangelo have used the Golden Ratio to hone their work and make it that much more aesthetically pleasing.
When it came to Carwow’s deep dive into the most beautiful car, they applied the Golden Ratio to 14 points on the front view of the car. Things like:
● Headlights
● The windshield
● Side-view mirrors
Then, Carwow measured the distance between each of these 14 points on every vehicle and fed those numbers into their algorithm to see which vehicle was the closest to striking the Golden Ratio. At the end of the study, there was a clear winner: Ferrari had created the world’s most beautiful car.
However, of the 197 vehicles created after 1950 that were evaluated, Ferrari had many more high-performing, eye-catching vehicles. While the Monza SP1 was the only car from the previous decade to make it into the top ten, it was by no means the only Ferrari to make it into the top ten most beautiful cars. Also in the top ten were three other cars made by the luxury sports carmaker, rounding out Ferrari’s contributions to the top ten most beautiful cars of all time to four total. These included:
● The 1967 Ferrari 330 GTC Speciale
● The 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO
● The 1967 Ferrari 330 P4
What can we gather here? When it comes to science-backed evaluations of beauty, nobody does it quite like Ferrari.
A History Based in Design
Enzo Ferrari began his work as a carmaker with a focus on the engine. He was even quoted as saying, “I don’t sell cars, I sell engines. The cars I throw in for free since something has to hold the engine in.” But the car soon became just as important to the Ferrari brand as the engine itself.
In 1951, Ferrari and his team sought out the expert advice of Turin-based auto body manufacturer Pininfarina to design his cars, using an architectural approach. Even at the beginning, draftsmen would draw cross-sections of vehicles based on aerodynamics, then even carving full-scale mock-ups out of wood to get the lines and look just right before moving a vehicle into production.
Even today, Ferrari’s designers sketch and draw using digital tools, but they still always make clay models. Why is this? It was important to Ferrari. At the Design Museum, Andrew Nahum said, “[Ferrari] says there’s something not quite there when [a design] comes straight from the computer. The sculptural unit of the car is absolutely important, they pay great attention to that.”
Witness the Beauty Firsthand
At Motorsport Lab, we know nothing beats capturing a glimpse of a Ferrari in person. That’s why we’ve carefully curated a trip through Motor Valley in Italy that highlights the best of the best: The most beautiful car in the world, the Ferrari.
Join us for an adventure that pairs the stunning sights of Italy with the breathtaking views of Ferrari, Lamborghini, and more. It’s an extraordinary experience unlike any other. To discover more about our trip, contact us today!
If you like this article and want to bump into famous celebrities as we visit the Italian Automakers of Ferrari, Lamborghini, Pagani, Maserati, and Ducati, please join the Motorsport Lab’s Cradle of Supercar’s Tour in Motor Valley, Italy. Tour dates are September 1 – 9, 2022. Click here to learn more and get registered.