Do You Dream of Owning a One-Off Ferrari? It's Not As Easy to Obtain as You Might Think

Owning a Ferrari is relatively easy provided that you have the money to spend to buy one. But owning a Ferrari? That’s a different story altogether. See, there are tiers when it comes to the kinds of Ferrari owners. Most people own one or two Ferraris and call it a day. They’re “regular” Ferrari owners if such a thing even exists. Then there’s the more exclusive club reserved for Ferrari’s top clients. These are the people who don’t just buy one or two Ferraris; they buy all of them, or at least most of them. These people are such regular customers that they get invited to an exclusive club that has access to the most exclusive of exclusive Ferraris: the one-offs.

Ferrari’s most important clients have opportunities to own one-off Ferraris that they themselves commission Ferrari to build for them. But just because they have that privilege doesn’t mean that Ferrari will build them a one-off model on a whim. The growing trend for one-off Ferraris comes in response to the increasing demand from clients to get their hands on a Ferrari that no other person in the world has. In turn, that demand has created a waitlist that can take up to four or five years to accommodate. We can argue whether a four- or five-year wait is too long, but it seems that no one is making a big fuss about it given how long the waitlist has become.

And considering the latest one-off that Ferrari just released — the Ferrari P80/C — there’s a case to be made that all that waiting will be worth it once the one-off model comes to life.

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Such is the life of an esteemed VIP Ferrari client, right? It’s bad enough that they buy just about every new Prancing Model that launches, but to be subjected to the same inconveniences as regular people through a so-called “waitlist?” Blasphemy, I say!

Sarcasm notwithstanding, the five-year waitlist for a one-off Ferrari isn’t something that Ferrari just cooked up to grate at the nerves of its VIPs. That’s the kind of demand for these one-offs, something Ferrari’s commercial and marketing boss, Enrico Galliera, told Autocar. “The client has not only a unique car but a unique experience working with the designer in the process. It’s the pinnacle of Ferrari,” he said.

Galliera isn’t lying. It doesn’t get any better than having the opportunity to help build and eventually own a one-off Ferrari. That means that you’re the only one in the world with a car like that, in part because it was built specifically for you. That’s why Ferrari painstakingly goes through a strict and comprehensive screening process to identify the clients that deserve to be included in its VIP list. “It is offered to top clients only,” Galliera said. “We receive requests from clients, and it won’t be considered unless they are in a pool of our top 250 clients or so.”

These clients don’t just get the red velvet ropes lifted for them; they get the keys to the small red room at the back of the club. That’s how exclusive this client list is. For its part, Ferrari does reward that kind of loyalty by developing one-off cars that are worth their weight in gold. Take the Ferrari P80/C, for example. The one-off, track-only Ferrari took four years to develop. It’s the longest development time of any one-off Ferrari ever made to date. That distinction makes it even more special in a sea of special one-off Ferraris since typical one-offs usually take around two years to develop.

The P80/C itself is based on the 488 GT3 race car, and if you squint hard enough, you can see some shared details between the two models. But the P80/C, for the most part, is a model of its own, designed to pay homage to iconic Ferraris of yesteryear, including the 330 P3/4, Dino 206 S, and 250 LM Berlinettas. That powertrain produces 550 horsepower, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the P80/C comes with more ponies on tap. I’d at least expect 700 horsepower, the amount of power another recently released one-off Ferrari — the F8 Tributo — has at its disposal. Certain elements of Ferrari’s own Formula One race cars — the aerodynamic cues near the engine cover being one of them — also found their way into the design of the P80/C. From a performance point of view, the P80/C is a track-only race car through and through. It’s not subjected to the whims of any race series regulations, so Ferrari designers took advantage of the freedom they had to effectively create the perfect track car.

Whether it ends up being one will likely depend on how the owner of this car — believed to be Hong Kong media tycoon TK Mak — drives it, but, make no mistake, the P80/C is the ultimate expression of Ferrari engineering. There’s no car in the world like it, literally and figuratively. That’s what makes the Ferrari P80/C special, and, certainly, that’s what made past one-off Ferraris special in their own right, too.

Ever since Ferrari launched its one-off program at the 2008 Geneva Motor Show, we’ve seen a handful of one-off models come to life. It’s a list that continues to grow with each passing year, but the exclusivity of these models remain the same. One person in the world has one, while the rest of the population has none.