Article

Some Pretty Ugly Ferraris

By Grease Monkey · 1 June 2026

1980 Pinin

The world was going through a design identity crisis in 1980, and the Pinin concept caught the full blast of it. Built on a 400 GT chassis for Pininfarina's 50th anniversary, it was the first ever four-door Ferrari, and it looked the part: long, flat, boxy, and more Jaguar XJ than Prancing Horse. Enzo floated putting it into production. Sanity and development costs intervened. It lives in a California private collection now, a curio from an era when even the greats occasionally lost the plot. Image via By <a href="commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1…">Brian Snelson </a>

3.2 Mondial

The Mondial's reputation as the worst Ferrari ever built has always been a stretch, and the 3.2 version of 1985 is the strongest argument against that verdict. The 270bhp V8 shared its architecture with the 328, the gated shifter was right, the mid-engine layout proper. The problem was proportion: a long wheelbase, a tall windscreen, a roofline that could never quite commit to being a sports car. You knew it was a Ferrari. It just read like a sentence that went on a beat too long. Image via Ferrari Media

550 GTZ Barchetta

Not actually ugly. Just not really a Ferrari in anything but name and mechanicals. Zagato built three examples in 2009 to mark their 90-year collaboration, each based on the 550 Barchetta platform with the full 485bhp V12 left untouched. The body, though, sat somewhere between an Aston Martin Zagato and a TVR having a midlife crisis. Strip the badge and you would struggle to place it. The right-hand drive example sold at auction for considerably less than its one-million-pound asking price. The market voted with its wallet. Image By <a href="commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9…">Gordon Calder </a>

849 Testarossa

Reviving the Testarossa name was always going to be a loaded move, and Ferrari's 849 did not make it easy on itself. The hybrid powertrain is extraordinary, over 1,000 horsepower from a twin-turbo V8 and three electric motors. The styling has genuine aggression. But the side strakes are gone, and the silhouette bears no meaningful resemblance to the Miami Vice icon whose name it carries. Ferrari went hard on aerodynamic efficiency and lost the identity somewhere in the crossfire. It is a great car wearing the wrong costume. Image Via Ferrari Media

Dino 308 GT4

The GT4 arrived at the 1973 Paris Motor Show without a Ferrari badge, which was standard practice for V8 Dinos. It also arrived without Pininfarina, which was not. Marcello Gandini at Bertone designed it, bringing his trademark angular language to a mid-engine 2+2 that housed four people and 255bhp in 4.3 metres. Next to the 246 GT it was meant to complement, it looked like a different brand entirely. Mechanically it was every inch a Ferrari. Aesthetically it wore the wrong suit to the party.

330 GT 2+2 Shooting Brake

There is only one of these in the world, and that is probably correct. In 1967, Ferrari importer Luigi Chinetti Jr. sent a 330 GT 2+2 to Carrozzeria Vignale with a brief to rebody it as an estate wagon. The resulting car appeared at the 1968 Turin Motor Show with a slab-sided rear section grafted onto Ferrari proportions and looking exactly as confused as that sounds. Remarkably, it has since sold at auction for close to a million dollars. History has been kinder to it than its appearance alone warranted. Image By <a href="commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4…">By Edvvc </a>

400i

The 400i is not a bad-looking car on its own terms. Fioravanti designed it at Pininfarina and CAR Magazine once described the 400 series as among the most elegant bodies the studio had ever produced. But park it next to a 308 or a Berlinetta Boxer and the saloon-influenced proportions start to show. It was also the first Ferrari fitted with a GM-sourced automatic gearbox. If that sentence does not capture the compromise at its heart, nothing will. It is a Ferrari. You just might not guess that from across the road. Image By<a href="commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2…"> Mr.choppers</a>

THE NOT UGLY LUCE

Every car on this list, even the awkward ones, is unmistakably a Ferrari from some angle. Remove the badge from the Pinin or the Mondial and something about the proportions, the intent, the character still says Maranello. The Luce, Ferrari's first electric car and first product of the Jony Ive collaboration, does not offer that reassurance. It is smooth, minimal, aerodynamically resolved, and almost entirely devoid of visual drama. Former chairman Luca di Montezemolo said it risked destroying a myth. The internet compared it to a cordless vacuum cleaner. Neither was wrong. Every other car on this list knew it was a Ferrari. The Luce is still working that out. Image Via

Grease Monkey

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