Ferrari collectibles, the beauty of technology

The Italian brand Ferrari is not only the most famous one in the automotive industry, it evokes something absolute, highly performant and difficult to match in the collective imagination. Ferrari captures people's attention all over the world and it is probably its ‘immaterial’ dimension, often described as dreamlike, that makes every Ferrari car so desirable.

Ferrari stirs the passion of fans and collectors alike, and stimulates the curiosity of those who are not familiar with racing and engines. There is no rational explanation, but it is certain that the strength of the brand lives and feeds on an emotional experience.

Ferrari is now offering its new Collectibles series based on these values. These are mechanical components and individual parts from cars that have competed in exciting races, each piece encapsulating a story and the often dramatic events typical of the world of racing. These objects are both witnesses to a memory and an expression of their own beauty, even through the experiences that sometimes determine their appearance, in the uniqueness that each individual part has represented.

Beauty and functionality, the charm of technology

“Beauty and functionality”, as Flavio Manzoni, Chief Design Officer at Ferrari, pointed out during the presentation to the public at Milan Design Week 2025, “are the essence of every Ferrari. The work we do every day at the Centro Stile in Maranello focuses on finding a balance between these two souls so they can coexist in all the projects we develop and find their highest expression.”

Ferrari's identity has been established over time through models that have combined increasingly high technical and formal content, developing a language capable of synthesising the winning spirit of motor racing with an idea of beauty that is the result of profound creative elaboration.

“In conceiving the new Ferrari Collectibles series”, continues Manzoni, “we set ourselves the goal of ”freeing’ these objects and suspending them in space, moving as far as possible from the concept of ‘glorification’ understood as a display case or pedestal. In a sense, we try to express what Gillo Dorfles, one of the most astute scholars of design and visual culture of our time, had observed. He stated that even a typically mechanical object - such as a crankshaft or a piston, in our case – that is designed for a purely functional purpose, has an appreciable aesthetic value.”

Ferrari Collectible Small Pieces

The aim of the designers at the Ferrari Design Centre in Maranello was therefore not to treat the new Collectibles in a ‘museological’ sense of the term, to be locked away in a display case as if they were relics, but to give people the opportunity to observe these normally hidden elements. In this way, they can appreciate their shapes and the design ingenuity that created them, and even to touch them and grasp all the values they express.

The objects in the new Ferrari Collectibles series appear as small architectural structures, suspended in the ethereal dimension. They are dense with the meaning they carry within them, and are timeless and capable of creating a new, unexpected and engaging experience for the viewer. This effect is created by the unusual presentation: thin brushed aluminium panels act as a backdrop or base for highly transparent Plexiglas sections, held in place by simple interlocking joints and laser-cut to follow the profile of the various elements. From the valve, the smallest component in the series and an essential part of every engine, to the connecting rods, pistons, crankshafts and cams, exhausts and brake discs, the display system certainly contributes to accentuating the ‘scenic’ presence.

The design, both essential and rigorous, allows these components to be supported - literally ‘suspended’ - leaving it possible to clearly see their shape, observe them closely and touch them with your hands. In the Small Pieces of the Ferrari Collectibles family - the name chosen to distinguish them from other series of collectibles that will follow - it are therefore the individual elements that capture the attention of the observer, as if to establish a different interaction and perception, stimulated by the play of reflections and transparencies, by the material, now shiny, now matt, that animates them.

The genesis of the project

“In conceiving the new Collectibles series”, Flavio Manzoni explains, “we wanted to draw on our background as designers at the Ferrari Style Centre, not only in the field of design but also in architecture. We turned to all the experience of minimalism and to research that aimed to dematerialise as much as possible any element that was not strictly necessary. I think that both myself and other colleagues of my generation have been fortunate enough to have known some of the great masters of modern design and architecture: Carlo Scarpa, Giovanni Klaus Koenig, Achille Castiglioni, Bruno Munari, Shiro Kuramata and many others. Each of them passed on values to us: in the way they worked, in their constant search for innovation and fundamental principles such as proportions and the appropriate use of materials. The use of methacrylate, for example, or the use of essential structural elements in design, gives the object a sense of suspension and lightness, allowing it to be contemplated in the essence of its form. This approach is consistent with our way of working in car design, where we tend to act by subtraction rather than adding the superfluous, in order to identify and communicate, in the true spirit of Ferrari, the emotion of the project.”

Engines and ‘exploded views’

The selection of Collectibles on display for the first time at the Ferrari Store in Via Berchet 2 in Milan, a stone's throw from the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele and the Duomo during Milan Design Week, saw the world premiere of two engines that represent two milestones in Ferrari's history. The first is the 048B F1 engine, which in 1999 won Ferrari its ninth Constructors' World Championship when Eddie Irvine, Michael Schumacher and Mika Salo took the top spots in the super-fast F399. The engine is a naturally aspirated 3-litre V10 capable of delivering 790 hp at 16,300 rpm. Here too, the support designed by the Ferrari Design Centre is made of methacrylate sheets bonded to a floor support plate. The resulting transparency accentuates the suspension effect, almost making the engine look like a flying entity.

Near the entrance to the Ferrari Store, before encountering the striking installation featuring a Formula 1 car suspended from above, is the exploded view of the 6.3-litre V12 engine that powered the LaFerrari (2013). Fitted to the first hybrid road car in Ferrari's history, it represents one of the most important milestones in the company's 78-year history, as it was the first combustion engine to be enhanced by the Formula 1-derived HY-KERS system based on a powerful electric motor. The combination was capable of delivering 963 hp. The model on display, every detail of which can be admired thanks to the design and construction of a support arm and special spacers, as well as a mirror plate in the lower area, is a prototype built during the development process of LaFerrari.

Why collect these items?

Ferrari Collectibles are unique and unrepeatable testimonies to an extraordinary history that harks back to the exciting events of motor racing and Ferrari's successes. Offering collectors the opportunity to share the emotions that these objects still evoke today is a way of emphasising once again the technological and creative value of Ferrari's identity, history and future.

For the creators of the project, Ferrari Collectibles ‘are not objects like any other, they are whispers of speed, the echo of a roaring engine, captured forever in a timeless form’. After all, every model produced by the Maranello-based company has become part of the history and evolution of the automobile and, beyond their elite distribution, many Ferraris have become an integral part of the collective imagination. The new Ferrari Collectibles series aims to offer the opportunity to own a piece of the Ferrari spirit, to appreciate the design and engineering expertise and the relentless pursuit of perfection.

All images © Courtesy Ferrari Media Centre / Enrico L. Fagone