The Ferrari Principle: why great writing is about feeling, not info

My budget has never quite stretched to supercars, but I read something fascinating about Ferrari this week.

They spent a whopping six years and 40,000km developing the revving sound for their first electric car, the Luce.

That’s an awful lot of elbow grease for a noise. But Ferrari were smart. They knew that without the purring roar of a combustion engine, their customers would feel shortchanged.

They could get from A to B just fine. But it wouldn't feel like a Ferrari if it moved silently.

(And presumably, you wouldn’t get nearly as many jealous glances from us commoners as you sped by.)

In what was possibly one of the most pretentious things I’ve ever read, their sound engineer described the noise as ‘A meta-sound. Not a sound. A mindset.’

But I kind of get what he means.

And – segue alert – there’s an obvious parallel with communication.

People are copy-pasting AI output and wondering why nobody's responding, clicking, or engaging. The information got from A to B and the words were beautifully spelt and all in the right order. But something essential is missing – a feeling.

Nobody drives a Ferrari just to get somewhere. They drive it for the surge of power, the sound climbing as you push through the gears, the slightly ridiculous thrill of it.

Writing works the same way. Your reader doesn't just want the information. They want to feel something. Seen, maybe. Challenged. Reassured. Delighted.

So when you write anything this week:

1. Ask yourself one question: how do I want my reader to feel when they finish this?

   
   

2. And, if you’re using AI to draft, what do you need to add back in to create a feeling, just like that Ferrari purr?