Are there any old school Ferrari dealers left?

I could be wrong, but I remember reading somewhere that when the Challenge series started in '93, Ferrari dictated all authorized dealers must have a client in the program.

I wonder how many dealers there are today versus then, and how they go about that program currently.

 

I used to see Ron (Mr.Tonkin) fairly often either at events or at the dealership. I used to go and just hang out there from time to time. He was a great guy, very approachable. Had a few Ferrari related conversations with him. The Ferrari world is a lesser place without him.


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I bought my 488 from Ferrari of Washington. My salesman’s name was Casey and he was great to work with! Easy to reach, very thorough with pics and documents I asked for. I called numerous dealerships and honestly found the experience to be extremely frustrating, customer service was lacking at nearly all of them, which as a qualified ready to pull the trigger buyer was very frustrating. FOW was great to work with!

 

Not true. I worked in 2 different dealers who never had a Challenge presence and there were others. They suggested it and promoted it. but did not require it. One of the other dealers was the factory owned dealer and did not do it for a few years.

 

I believe he had a stake in just the one store.

 

Tom and Steve are true gentleman. Working at their dealership was a joy. It really was one big family. I look back fondly at those days and often wish we were all still there.

 

Those were good years for sure, many great memories!

 

True

 

Over on this side of the pond, we have Carrs Ferrari in Exeter.
Superb service, particularly on the mechanical side.
They look after my GTE, my Lusso and recently even rebuilt the engine on my Lancia 8.32.
Meridien Modena are also well thought of.
Both, I believe, still family firms.
Others tend to be owned my massive groups or hedge funds

 

When I was up at Lime Rock for the FCA tack days in July Classic Coach had a good amount of hardware represented. They are def still into it, dating all the way back from when my father first got a car from them in the late 80s.

 

In the 1960's there was a Goodyear racing tire business in south suburban Chicago that sold and serviced Ferraris. It was called RRR Motors in Homewood Illinois.. My father purchased a 3 year old beautiful Maserati 3500 there that was a trade in on a new Ferrari.

 

I believe Miller Coachworks in Greenwich Ct. fits the bill.

 

Cauley Ferrari supports racing, at least they always have. They support FCA with events, and are family owned. It is a great dealership and easy to deal with.

 

It's Miller Motorcars, and I worked there from 1985-1989.

 

Everywhere you look, it's about Money and Control. No matter what anyone says!

 

Seattle is owned by a family and they are good

 

As a kid growing up in Silicon Valley I remember the old Ferrari of Los Gatos (@Rifledriver ), Ferrari Walnut Creek and Ferrari San Francisco in the actual city on Geary. All gone!

San Francisco in Mill Valley (Marin) was the first corporate effort in the area.

Oddly, the current Silicon Valley dealership was a computer store but before that it was a Chrysler dealer that sold Maserati Biturbos and an occasional Diablo!

 

Ferrari of Beverly Hills is owned by Giacomo Mattioli who is very passionate about racing. They have won the most pro races and championships in IMSA and won at Le Mans, and run the biggest number of Ferrari Challenge cars. They are a very good dealership. Not what you think of for Beverly Hills. They own Westlake Village Ferrari as well which has a very good atmosphere and a great GM named James Bush. Highly recommend!

 

Ron Tonkin Gran Turismo is the oldest continuous Ferrari dealership in NA and still owned by the Tonkin family, Brad to be specific. Still supporting Challenge Series and the 'family' of Ferrari owners in the area. Steve Wintermantel and Tim Cupp do a great job supporting us. Stories of late night, weekend repairs/support is stuff of legend, if a fun drive is in jeopardy.

 

The service department lead by the manager Scott Marsh has been excellent for the 14 years I've had my Maserati QP and for the 6 years I've had a 75 308 GT4.

 

The Mill Valley store was the only factory owned store. It was to be the first but just like Mercedes and Porsche before them they discovered being in the retail side was not the easy, slam dunk way to fame and fortune they thought it to be. The first and real FSF was on Geary then closed, then reopened with new ownership on Van Ness. In those days N California had more stores and more sales than S California. Van Ness got closed so the factory could build the Mill Valley store just north of the Golden Gate.

 

I think the worldwide purge of the old school dealers started with Luca di Montezemolo taking over in the early nineties. For example, Juan Quintano was Ferrari distributor for Spain and had the store in Madrid. He was old school and tight with Enzo for decades, but ultimately, they pushed him out. In fact, I met Giuseppe Risi at Juan's house in Madrid when they were partners in several dealerships. Juan ultimately had a Lamborghini store in Madrid.

Another friend was born near the factory and worked for Ferrari for 12 years during that transition. Shortly after he left, he was visiting us in California and a cousin of mine was in Italy. He called me to ask if I could help get him a tour at the factory, so I asked my friend. He said that virtually all of his contacts at the factory had been replaced except Dario Benuzzi at Fiorano. There was some major housecleaning going on in addition to a change in philosophy. My cousin was a Ferrari owner and ultimately got access, but all my buddy could do was get him in at Fiorano, which is not a bad thing.

I got involved with the brand in the early seventies and it was a very different experience. The last time I was at the factory was 2019 and it is like NASA now. The first time I went was 1979 and was really still just a tiny little factory building cars the same way they had for decades. That was about the time that Scaglietti was finally not doing bodies for some production cars. I think the 365BB might have been one of the last cars to be beaten by hand using power hammers. Pininfarina was stamping panels by then for sure.

The controls they now place on dealerships are staggering. They know they have the biggest luxury do brand in the world, guard it fiercely and have strong controls on how the brand is presented.

 

Brand is the word.
See HR Owen, the London main dealer (where I used to live)

I think HR Owen is owned by the Berjaya group (Vincent Tan).
CEO Ken Choo “wants owners to feel part of an exclusive club”.

We bought two cars from them and were invited to track days, tests, launches at Maranello, tours, receptions.
They do this stuff really well.
It’s what certain people want, it what makes them buy multiple cars.

No disrespect to them, there are some good people there, and we had fun at the events.

HR Owen serviced the new cars, and to be fair wouldn’t have been interested in the others which were looked after by specialists.
The service department is on a separate site to the show room.
I never met anybody on the service side of the business, a driver would pick the cars up and return them later with the service book stamped.

Now I am down here in the rural South West all my Italian car business goes to Carrs. I forgot to mention in my post above that they also service my 1961 Alfa.
With the Lancia 8.32 they had new parts machined, arrived at innovative solutions, even found an obscure part on eBay and got the seller to take £20 instead of £30.
They are resourceful, problem solving engineers, who can also sell you a new Ferrari.

So, two different styles, both well executed.

 

Yes! Classic Coach is a world-class facility. This was the first place I visited when I began my Ferrari search. Really nice, helpful people. I saw a number of vintage Ferraris in there, some getting full frame up restorations.

It's tucked away pretty inconspicuously in a busy area in the middle of Elizabeth, NJ. You'd drive right by it and totally miss it.

Also, if you're into British cars, there is a tiny but absolutely top-notch place in Allentown, PA, K&T Vintage Sports Cars.

 

is the old man still running Classic Coach?