Meet Ferrari’s artist in residence
Frank Stephenson is the American-born chief of design for Ferrari and Maserati, in charge of coordinating design and styling between the factories and the styling house Pininfarina in Turin, Italy. Before coming to Ferrari, Stephenson worked at BMW, where he famously designed the new Mini Cooper. The F430 is the first complete car to emerge from Ferrari during his tenure. Dan Neil interviewed Stephenson at the Ferrari factory in Maranello, Italy.
Neil: There are lots of shiny new office buildings on the factory grounds since the last time I was here, as well as the giant wind tunnel facility used by the Formula 1 race team. I wonder if the high-tech character of the factory reflects a fundamental change in the cars?
Stephenson: Definitely, the cars are more technical and more electronic -- look at the E-Diff and the manettino [dynamics control]. I mean, Formula 1 is not cheap, and we have to get some advantage out of it. Anything we can do to push our cars in the Formula 1 direction, to adapt or adopt that technology, that’s an advantage for us -- it’s costly for Ferrari but it’s quite a bit more costly for anybody else. Literally, if we could put a license plate on a Formula 1 car, that would be the ultimate Ferrari.
Neil: Does that mean you walk away from the myth of the little Italian factory that could?
Stephenson: We all realize that being at the top, that is the hardest thing to do. When you are there everybody wants your place. Everybody’s at a high level now, everybody’s pushing, and you can’t stand pat.
Neil: I understand you have a new CFD [computational fluid dynamics] modeling program for aerodynamic studies. How reliable is it? Do you see a day when you can get away from the wind tunnel?
Stephenson: It’s state of the art, as far as we’ve ever been able to achieve. At the same time, I don’t think physical tests in the wind tunnel will ever be replaced. Aerodynamics is a black art. You don’t know what you’re going to get. What you think might not work works, and what you do think works sometimes doesn’t.
Neil: How have all these technical demands unduly influenced styling?
Stephenson: True design is more than just styling. The challenge of a good designer is to make something that works better look better. At the same time, we have to sell these things -- they are road cars -- and they have to look like Ferraris. We have an obligation to not only make the car technically correct but also add that artistic element that it is beautiful sculpture.
Neil: Tell me about the “shark nose” styling on the front of the car. It’s met with mixed reviews.
Stephenson: In 1961 Phil Hill won the F1 world championship in this car, and it has such a distinctive face. It’s such a distinctive car, you either like it or hate it.... That face is such an atypical face; to be able to use that face for a road car is just cool. It performs much better than our last bumper aerodynamically, and you immediately recognize our DNA.
Neil: But has it resonated with the public?
Stephenson: It has resonated with the people who know what a Ferrari is all about. It doesn’t resonate with people who don’t really know Ferrari or who are not really racing aficionados.
Neil: So it’s a litmus test? Is it retro?
Stephenson: Retro doesn’t go forward; it goes back. We’ve taken something that -- like your grandfather’s eyes have ... evolved into your eyes. And in that way you see the link. It’s not that you’re going back, you’re going forward. It’s an evolution of a design that we’re proud of and that works.
