2013 Ferrari California on 2040-cars

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Ferrari picks up ex-Sauber driver Esteban Gutierrez as test pilot

With McLaren's long-awaited confirmation of Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button, the grid for the 2015 Formula One World Championship is finally complete. (That is, at least, aside from the bankrupt Caterham and Marussia teams, whose fate for next season still remain open.) But with the big game of musical chairs now drawn to a close, not everyone who had a seat this year will have one the next. And that includes one Esteban Gutierrez, who lost his ride with Sauber but has landed a test driver role with Ferrari instead. Gutierrez climbed up through the formula racing ladder, winning the 2008 Formula BMW Europe and 2010 GP3 titles before getting his start as a test driver with the Sauber team – a role which he held for two seasons while simultaneously putting up a good fight and winning races in GP2. Sauber promoted him to the race seat in 2013 (when he placed a career-best seventh place at the Japanese Grand Prix) and kept him on board for another season. But after failing to finish in the points even once this past year, both he and veteran team-mate Adrian Sutil were both replaced for next season. Taking their place will be Marcus Ericsson (who drove for Caterham this year) and newcomer Felipe Nasr (who served this season as test driver at Williams). That's left Gutierrez without a race seat, but Scuderia Ferrari has snapped him up as its official test and reserve driver for next season. In that capacity he'll be offered the chance to drive top-flight machinery and hone his skills with a front-running team, and will be on standby should either Sebastian Vettel or Kimi Raikkonen be unable to drive at one grand prix or another. Most of the other teams have yet to confirm their third drivers, but Williams recently announced it was promoting Susie Wolff to the job and McLaren confirmed Kevin Magnussen was bumped down for next season to make way for Alonso. The move may strike some as odd since Gutierrez is not part of the Ferrari Driver Academy development program, but Sauber has long shared close ties with the Maranello-based team. Ferrari supplies engines to Sauber, which in turn sometimes graduates drivers to the Scuderia. Former Ferrari drivers Felipe Massa and Giancarlo Fisichella both drove for Sauber, and current drivers Vettel and Raikkonen both got their starts there as well. A Mexican driver is back to Maranello Maranello, 15 December 2014 – Ferrari announces that, as from next season, Esteban Gutierrez will become part of the Scuderia workforce.

Lamborghini caps 2020 production at 8,000 to preserve cachet, resale values

Lamborghini chairman and CEO Stefano Domenicali told Car Advice that the Sant'Agata Bolognese automaker will cap production at 8,000 cars in 2020. Even though the cap doesn't take effect for a year, it has caught us by surprise — we didn't realize just how well Lamborghini is doing. In 2010, Lamborghini sold 1,302 cars worldwide, while its rival in Modena sold 6,461 units. Last year, Lamborghini broke all of its records on the way to a 51 percent sales increase and 5,750 cars delivered. The cap maintains two post-sale hallmarks required to fuel Lamborghini's new-car sales: exclusivity and resale values. Ferrari has led the way with public declarations of voluntary caps to maintain brand cachet, and Lamborghini's happy to shadow that leader. Domenicali, an ex-Ferrari man, didn't miss an opportunity to put the running bull's nose ahead of the prancing horse's in his comments, though. He told the Australian publication, "I can also say that for us, Ferrari has always been a reference ... as well as others in the super sports car segment, but we have already achieved higher residual values for our cars, especially with some of our older models." The boss marked out half the 2020 allotment for the Urus, two-thirds of the remainder for the Huracan, and the rest for the Aventador. We expect any 2020 cap to apply only to 2020, though. If Lamborghini can hustle a 40 percent increase in deliveries this year — 2,300 more units, and that's not outside the realm of possibility since this is the first full year of Urus sales — then in 2019 the carmaker will exceed the 2020 cap by 50 units. In such case, shrinking supply next year would help sustain the lather of acolytes, as well as copy another page from Ferrari's handbook. In 2013, then-Ferrari CEO Luca Montezemolo held production to under 7,000 units, after building 7,318 cars in 2012. In 2014, then-Ferrari CEO Sergio Marchionne said he'd stick to the "willful and intended" 7,000-unit cap. But when Ferrari announces its 2018 results soon, we expect uncapped shipments to exceed 9,000 units. Other upward pressures on Lamborghini's sales would be the success of the Huracan GT3 EVO, which won the GTD class in the weekend's Rolex 24 at Daytona, a year after the Huracan GT3 won in 2018. Lamborghini Squadra Corse has built more than 200 customer racers, and no one would rule out a few more orders phoned in on Monday.

Autoblog remembers its favorite Ferrari models of the Montezemolo Era

Italian cars have a reputation for drawing out the fiery, emotional and passionate sides of car enthusiasts - something that becomes abundantly clear when you ask a group of Autoblog editors to rank a list of their favorites.
With the departure of Luca di Montezemolo from Ferrari being fresh on our collective minds today, your friendly team of editors started pleasantly discussing which of the cars launched during his era was our favorite. The conversation was rousing, so we thought it would be entertaining to put the choices to a quick ranked vote, and bring you a sort of Editors' Choice list for road-going Ferraris from the 1990s through today.
Then, of course, all hell broke loose.