Factory Tour in March - what 348/F355 questions to ask?

See about photos of the manufacturing process of the 355

Particularly the body work and paint at the factory. I want to see those!
I went to the plant on a last min trip to Italy and I was to late to get a owners tour but had a good time seeing it. Then stumbling upon the Ducati factory. Funny really!

 

Back to your post. Ask them why they continued to put headers on the 355 they knew were faulty be design instead of correcting the problem why did you continue to put interior parts in cars knowing they would become sticky and have to be addressed by the owner. And who really shot Kennedy?

 

Agreed. Any period photos (even of prototypes/testing) would be great. I'm guessing any technical questions or criticisms will be met with rolled eyes

 

If you had a connection to get into Lamborghini you may get lucky. There were larger public tours when I was there but because I'm a "customer" we were given a private tour which was awesome.

Be careful on those Italian roads. I racked up almost $1000 in speeding tickets that came in the mail 6 months after the fact. I wonder what happens next time I go back to Italy with unpaid tickets?

 

I went to lamborghini plant as well even without the private tour I did enjoy the museum and the factory tour was cool!

 

Great photos of James Garner, are they from the movie Grand Prix?
Very rare to see the F1 cars inside the factory. Enzo had them destroyed after each race to keep everything secret. Now they sell used parts after a race for thousands!

 

Hey, with extradition you might get a free ticket to go back (at least one way).

 

Has anyone got a photo of the front of the 355 Competizione as it was originally displayed in 1995 ?

Can't find anything for love nor money!!

 

So basically touring the Ferrari factory is like touring North Korea? No cameras and all the workers are pre-programmed on what to say?

I'm planning on doing the tour next year and if I'm in the area might as well do all 3 (Maserati and Lamborghini).

 

Timing belt and tensioner bearing service intervals, obviously.

 

Ask them when they are going to build a real sports car again. And what's the deal with all those turbos?

 

We want an Alfa 4C with a Ferrari V-8 in it and a manual shifter. Give it 4 2 bbl throttle bodies with injection to replicate the mechanical sound of a carb car. Call it a Dino.

 

I didn't see a single person at Maranello who could answer a question about an older car. The tour guides were 20 something girls with a couple of weeks of training (I asked them how long they had been doing the tours). One of the more interesting comments she made was that the California was their "entry level car" implying it was like a Honda Accord. A couple of guys who owned California models weren't amused.

The assembly line was a hoot. Those guys stopped working instantly when they saw an attractive women in the group. They just stopped and stared which was just weird. Clearly there is some issue because the women at Ferrari are kept in the upholstery section.

They did bounce a guy off our group who was just an ass shooting pictures when they asked him to stop several times.

It was a great trip.

 

We did the tour last September.

Whilst at the v8 engine line 2 young guys were bolting the turbos on the 488 engine. An older guy, maybe a supervisor, walked over to our group and waved us over for a closer look.

He seemed very proud trying to explain in poor english what a fantastic engine this is ! He was very excited. hands waving everywhere. lol

 

I did the tour a few years ago and I offered to pay £5 to anyone in my group who saw a 348 on the factory premises. Car, photo, painting ... anything.

They had a big mural on the wall with all the Ferrari models...but no 348.

Never handed out any £5, but will give it to you if you see one!

 

Had anybody ever tried to tour michelotto? I think that's whee you'd find all the good info on the f355 comp, 348gtc etc. I think they'll also supply some of those parts of you have an in.

 

The factory tour is great and you see lots of stuff. Questions specific to the tour we really well answered. If you are looking for a interesting restaurant, RetroGusto was a great place for dinner. (It is on tripadvisor.) The owner is Enzo and he basically sold us on letting him decide what we would eat. It was pretty darn good. It is maybe just 1/3 mile from the visitor entrance to the factory. For lunch, after the tour, we kinda followed some of the factory folks walking to lunch and ate at small hole in the wall pizza place. Dont remember what it was called but it was good.

 

I'm confirming a date for a tour in early October. Since there is a minimum age limit for the tour, my wife and 8 year old will not be able to go in. Any suggestions on what there is for them to do for a few hours in the vicinity of the factory while I am on the tour?

 

Galleria Ferrari? Or one of the many Ferrari collectible stores? The Ferrari store across from the entrance? The restaurant across from the front of the factory? McDonalds in Sassuolo for the 8 year old?

 

On behalf of all of the 355 Spider Owners: please ask the name, address, email, and cell phone number of the Azz Clown that engineered our convertible top. And please follow-up with a good Karate Kid, kick to the crotch. EOM.

 

Robb, hope you have fun. A few thoughts from our trip last November (and sorry I missed this thread when it was opened)

My wife and I were there for an Atelier appointment...which we finished up quickly, so we were able to spend a LOT of time (i.e. all morning) having a bit of a very private and personal tour of the factory.

Along the way, we were able to speak with the folks building the cars (limited to those with some English and who could understand my Italian). I found them VERY open, I was able to poke my head in, under and around a lot. Spent quite a bit of time with one of the (few) V12 assembly guys, who showed me the intake mechanism on the TDF engine.

I am guessing that since we were NOT part of the "packaged tour", we were given quite a bit more leeway, and saw some spaces that the normal tour does not. (eg. We spent a lot of time on the V12 line and saw the upholstery shop, which is upstairs.

On the "regular" tour we took later in the day, our guide told us the line was down for maintenance...i.e. they didn't want people to see the cars that were yet to be publicly introduced. We did).

A highlight was in the finishing and test area, I got to speak with one of the test engineers, who showed me their checklists. TOTALLY debunked the "the engines are broken in on the dyno, the cars are fully road tested at Fiorano, and the brakes are fully bedded from the factory" myths. They absolutely do a full functional test and road test, but in the traffic around Maranello, it's far from a track session. And, they will come back, make adjustments, and re-test....which explains why some cars have variable "delivery miles".

For those of us who have waited months for a new car....once a painted body shell is received at Maranello, and assuming all the pieces are there (Eg. Extra Campionario, etc), it only takes 2 days to build the car. It then may spend 2 days in test and evaluation, and at most 1 day waiting to be transported to the shipper. The other 4-6-9 months you wait? Hmmm. (they will not start a production car until they have all the bits ready to go on).

Later in the day, we did the "normal" Owners Tour. It was a group of about 10 of us, with a Ferrari PR-trained tour guide. She was delightful, but reminded me of a Disney character, she was impossible to get "off script", but was really well versed in the stuff she did know and/or was supposed to tell us. That tour was very rigid. A few times I had to pipe up and say "really? we were just up there this morning" (V12 line), "really? the test driver told me something different", etc etc. All in all, it was really well done, but packaged.

FWIW I would imagine some of the more senior folks over in Classiche might know some of the skeletons from the 355/348 period. We hung out in there for a bit, the folks were very open to speaking (again, language permitting).