Words: Andrew Sluys
Published 31 May 2026
Quick recap from earlier in the week: Ferrari unveiled the Luce in Rome, its first fully electric car, designed by LoveFrom rather than Maranello’s own studio. Four doors, five seats, 1050hp, smooth and convex surfaces. Roughly half the internet decided it looked more like a Nissan Leaf than a Maranello product. Ferrari shares fell 15 per cent in a single trading day.
We’ve put together a list of cars currently on sale that look more like a Ferrari than what Maranello showed the world.
5. Maserati MCPura
Ask a car designer to sketch “a mid-engined Italian supercar” and they will draw the MCPura. Long carbon-fibre nose, glassy cockpit set well back, butterfly doors, a 463kW Nettuno V6 sat in the spine. It is the lightly refreshed version of the MC20, sharing its carbon tub with the Alfa Romeo a few entries up this list. It costs roughly a third of what a Luce will, weighs nearly a tonne less, and looks every inch the supercar the Luce was supposed to be.
4. BYD Yangwang U9
The U9 is here because China is still doing things Maranello will not. 960kW, four motors, butterfly doors, hip-height side vents, hydraulic suspension that lets the car hop and dance from a standstill, and a Nordschleife time of under seven minutes. It looks like every wall-poster supercar of the last 30 years rolled into one. The newer U9 Xtreme variant pushes past 2200kW. Whatever Maranello is doing, BYD is doing the opposite.
3. De Tomaso P72
The revived De Tomaso brand began customer deliveries of the P72 late last year, with the first finished car handed over in April. A 700hp supercharged 5.0-litre Coyote V8, six-speed manual, dihedral doors, and a body that is the most unapologetic homage to 1960s Italian GT racers anyone has signed off this century. Only 72 will be built, all reportedly spoken for, and the asking price is around £1.6 million. Squint at the rear three-quarter and you can convince yourself it is a 1965 Ferrari 250 LM. That is entirely the point.
2. Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale
Stellantis quietly handed over the 33rd and final 33 Stradale a fortnight ago. The cars share their carbon tub with the Maserati MCPura, but Centro Stile clothed it in something far more dramatic: a long-bonneted, low-slung, butterfly-doored Italian supercar with either a 620hp twin-turbo V6 or a 750hp fully electric powertrain. Hand-built by Carrozzeria Touring Superleggera in Milan, every car commissioned face-to-face with no website configurator. This is the proper answer to “what should a new Italian halo car look like in 2026”, and it makes the Luce look like an oversight from the building next door.
1. MG Cyberster
The punchline writes itself, again. MG’s electric roadster has scissor doors, an MGB-style long-bonnet/short-tail silhouette, 375kW in the dual-motor version, 3.2 seconds to 100km/h, and a starting price of NZ$109,000 (or $129,000 for the AWD). It is two tonnes of Chinese-built two-seater drama, and it commits more fully to the idea of “sports car” than a €550,000 Ferrari currently manages. You can drive one home from a New Zealand MG dealer this weekend. The Luce is not yet in showrooms and will not start at less than ten times the price. Yet on the school run, the MG is the one that will draw a crowd.
There is still every chance the Luce reveals itself differently in person, and Maranello has a 78-year head start on getting design wrong before getting it right. But on current evidence, the most Ferrari-shaped car on sale in New Zealand today wears an MG badge and costs the same as a well-optioned Toyota Hilux.
