Flavio Manzoni Is Designing Ferrari’s Future: One Radical Line at a Time

Inside the visionary mind of Ferrari’s Chief Design Officer

In a cultural moment obsessed with nostalgia, where fashion resurrects past silhouettes, music revives decades, and design recycles trends, Ferrari’s Chief Design Officer, Flavio Manzoni, stands firmly, defiantly, in the beauty between the dance of past and future.

For Manzoni, progress is not found by repeating the past. It is found through a conversation with it — a tension, a dialogue — but never an imitation.

“The duty is to never forget the past, but never be a slave of it,” says Flavio Manzoni, who has led Ferrari’s design vision for the last 15 years. “People expect a new interpretation of a form of the past. But for me, design means innovation, not a repetition of something that already exists.”

This belief is at the core of Ferrari’s newest supercar: the 849 Testarossa, the successor to the SF90 Stradale, and the most radical embodiment yet of Manzoni’s design agenda. Not a nod to heritage, but a leap into what Ferrari could be.

When Manzoni began work on the 849 Testarossa, he wasn’t looking to refine the SF90. He was looking to transcend it.

“We wanted to make a step ahead in terms of radical design approach,” he explains. “The SF90 Stradale was still a little bit like a berlinetta, not too extreme or not extreme enough. With this new design, we wanted to give a clear message: This is a supercar.”

At Ferrari, that message begins with exploration. The design process doesn’t start with a single sketch or predetermined form. It starts wide, intentionally wide. Overseeing a styling center of approximately 100 to 120 people, Manzoni and his team’s job goes beyond design and flows into the relentless passion of bringing their vision to life.

“We start from a very divergent phase where we make experiments in different directions,” he says. “We don’t start with a preconceived idea. We have to know very well all the constraints of the project to design the perfect car.”

This divergence includes not only sketches but what Manzoni calls 3D sketches, rapid digital models that test whether a concept can truly work.

“Even if there is a good idea,” Manzoni emphasizes, “if we are not sure that this idea fits the package, we have to be sure the concept applies perfectly to the constraints of the project in a perfect way, so then step by step we converge into certain concepts that become visually more interesting.”

The Birth of the Twin Tail

Some of the most iconic Ferrari elements arise not from certainty, but from risk. Nothing captures this better than the 849 Testarossa’s dramatic twin tail.

“The twin tail or the so-called codoni in Italian  was very difficult,” he admits. “Until the end, we didn’t know exactly if it was possible. It’s always like a bet. I thought this concept is very strong, I want to go ahead and see what happens.'”

Engineers questioned it. Constraints mounted. Some ideas test your resolve, but Manzoni knew this was one worth fighting for.

“Sometimes if the constraints or the doubts are too many, I have to think about a plan B,” he says. “But I feel when something is possible. And I can still push it to come together.”

The result? A sculptural, aerodynamic signature that cements the car as one of Ferrari’s most visually striking modern supercars.To understand Manzoni is to recognize that he sees design as a holistic, immersive discipline — never shallow, never surface-only.

“I don’t like working only on aesthetic aspects,” he says. “Design is not styling. It’s an integrated project. I have to think about the product’s content and also the form, which is linked to it.”

Which is why cars like the 849 Testarossa become deeply personal, going through each design hurdle, learning how to marry the car’s performance with its aerodynamic character, negotiating which ideas stay and which must be let go.

“Every time there is the opportunity to make something extremely innovative, I feel more proud,” Manzoni reflects.

A Designer Inspired by the Future — Not the Past

Manzoni’s perspective cuts through a society often anchored to the past — emotionally, artistically, culturally.

“When I started my career in 1993, I discovered that the world was going into a completely different direction,” he reveals. “It was the vintage, the retro style — everything is retro. Music, fashion, design. It’s still like that.”

His inspiration was never rooted in nostalgia; it has always lived in the realm of futurism and possibility. As a child, Manzoni imagined the work he now brings to life, and much like the child who once dreamed it, he still moves with that forward gaze.

In discussing futurism, Manzoni brings up Syd Mead, the pioneering industrial designer and visual futurist whose work shaped everything from cinematic worlds to real-world automotive design. Best known for designing the worlds of Blade Runner and Tron, Mead was celebrated for envisioning futures that felt both otherworldly and believable.

“He was a great master, a visionary designer,” Manzoni says.

But when asked whether Mead directly influenced this new Ferrari, he shakes his head.

“Not really, but the idea of something very innovative, very futuristic, it was very strong for me. I wanted this job because of that.”

The 849 Testarossa marks not just a single milestone, but the beginning of a new Ferrari aesthetic vocabulary.

“There will be other cars talking the same language, with completely different interpretations. It’s like music,” Manzoni says, drawing a parallel between design and melody. “You have seven notes, always the same, but you can compose any kind of music.”

He explains that each Ferrari category — GTs, supercars, hypercars — will interpret these design “ingredients” uniquely.

“The more the car looks like a GT, the more it should be elegant,” the designer says. “The more the car expresses incredible performance, the more the design should be powerful and aggressive. It depends on how you declare these ingredients differently.”

This philosophy began with the 12Cilindri (pronounced “Dodici Cilindri”), continued with the F80 hypercar, and now reaches its boldest form in the 849 Testarossa — what Manzoni calls Ferrari’s “range supercar… very, very extreme,” his work carrying the unmistakable flourish of Italian conviction.

Designing Ferrari’s Tomorrow

As the interview winds down, one thing becomes clear: Flavio Manzoni isn’t designing cars for today. He’s designing the visual language of Ferrari’s next decade and beyond. To him, the past exists only as context. The future is the destination.

With the 849 Testarossa, Manzoni proves something simple yet profound: Ferrari’s greatest icons aren’t born from what once was. They’re born from the courage to imagine what has never been.