Is anyone planning on coming to the FCA Board meeting on Sat.Jan.10th? If you have questions or comments about the club or this years events we would like to hear them.It will be at the VFW hall at 10 W.Higgens Rd in Park Ridge( Kennedy & Canfield rd.)and will begin at 1pm.We will also be talking about the 2005 national event hosted by the Central States Region.
Judging by the response to this thread I guess nobody has any intrest in what goes on in our club,that's really too bad.
When you say the 2005 National event hosted by the Central States region, does that mean it'll be somewhere here in the Chicagoland area? Give the guys some time to log on and see the post. ;-) JMJ
Hi Mike, As you know, I attended the last annual board meeting. I do hope to be able to attend this one but there are a number of family issues that could likely require that I miss this one. I will attend if possible. Regards, Bill
Mike, I can't make it to the meeting. I do care about our club. If I can help with the 2005 Nationals project, let me know. The least I can do is take pictures...if you twist my arm hard enough.
I,too,do care about the Club.Thats why I joined. I contributed some pictures,and Video for the "Year in Review" DVD, (which I still haven't recieved) And,would really like to get more involved in the future. But,I have several personal issues at hand right now that I need to deal with. And,will also be in Park Ridge,soon,but,unfortunately,it will be as a patient at Lutheran General Hospital! ) Good-I'm,hopefully,finally,getting my back fixed.... Bad-OWWWW!!!!!!!) But,my Doctor is a fellow Ferrari owner and enthusiast. And,he knows how much my cars mean to me,so,he said he's going to take care of me so that I can still drive my cars. But,if I can access info. on the FCA website,that will be cool! (or here) Thanks!!!
Hey Mike, I was planning on coming, but I have some equipment down at the studio and may be having a tech out on Sat., so it depends on that. Maybe I can get Karen to hang out at the studio while the tech geeks out, while I go off and geek out about cars.... Of course I want to be there and continue discussing the racing film project we started talking about before. Also, Mike, do you have any extras of the 2003 Year in Review DVD? Can you send one to Frank, as he did contribute footage. If not, my apologies for the delay Frank, been swamped and mostly unavailable for the last few weeks, so I'm just starting to get caught up. If Mike doesn't have one, I'll get you one.
Mike, I'd come but my wife and I were fortunate enough to scam an invite to a friend of our's baby shower. I'm PSYCHED!
No can do for me. I have an out of town business trip scheduled and will be spending the weekend doing prep work. Dave
Thanks,Sean. I wasn't whining,or anything. When I picked up my tape from your office,your wife said that there weren't any copies of the DVD there,and that somebody,(Mike,maybe?) had them all. Thanks much!!! I do appreciate it. Sometime,you need to show the rest of the guys your business. It is very impressive. Did I say,awesome? Very Cool!!!!
My $ 0.02 as a FCA member for this meeting: Can we keep this a Ferrari club please? I have no interests whatsoever in Maseratis and seeing them in prime locations at the Oakstreet event and having real Ferraris like Bill's 365 parked outside the gate, irritates the heck out of me. I can tolerate them for marketing reasons if we have enough room. But if space is limited I don't understand why they're there. All I can say to the Maser owners is go, start your own club. Had to get that off my chest. Feel better now. Oh and did I mention, that I really don't care about Masers?
Yeah, I know. Had to get that venom out of my system. Seriously these Masers are the one thing that bothered me the most of all the events. And the fact that they even win prizes is an even greater insult. They can have prizes, fine, but in their own group. Every time I see a threat on FChat about the Masers and every time I find pages of my beloved Forza wasted on another Maser, it just gets to me. There is nothing wrong with these cars. They're just not Ferraris, hence I don't care about them in this context. We have to put up with this, just because one morning some Marketing genius in Modena thought, that we could sell more Masers if we combine them with the Ferrari name.
You got my vote,Andreas. I feel the same way. We were out driving a couple weeks ago in our Ferrari. (before the sh*tty weather arrived) Stopped by Continental to see what was new and exciting over there in Ferrari. The Whole front lot had ALL maserati's! Not 1 Ferrari outside. And,IMO,there's a reason for that. I don't think that they are selling. Those cars just aren't exciting. To me anyway. Sounds like you feel the same way. IMO,they look like a very bloated Jag.XK8,or something. In fact,I'd get an XK8 BEFORE I got one of those! Not exciting at all. Maybe,to a conservative 70 year old man,or for his wife. But,I do like the older Masers.- Merak,Bora,Ghibli. But,I'm sure that the argument,(not with me) ,regarding the "New" Maserati's,is that Ferrari makes the engines for them. So,if the engine is the Heart of the Beast,as I've heard way too many say... Blah,Blah,blah... But,I definitely have to agree with you about FERRARI'S on Oak. FERRARI'S only. The Bella Macchines D'Italy is the place for all of the assorted Italian Machinery.
Thanks for that Frank. I was wondering, whether I'm the only one who was irked by the intrusion of Masers. As you said, at the Belle Macchine, they have to be there. And I can even tolerate them at Ferrari events, if they don't get in the way (and e.g. Ferraris on Monroe Street had vacancies left over as Continental didn't show). But what happened at Oakstreet in my mind was an outrage: Good Ferraris not in the field and Masers not only using up space, but prime space in front of the movie theatre. And then they even win two of the precious prices. If there is a FCA event with a limited capacity, Masers should not be allowed. Simple as that. Last time I checked, the F in FCA stood for Ferrari...
Mike As you know, my wife has me building a house for Habitat on Saturday. Sorry I can't be there. I look forward to hooking up after the event and we can catch on the track event planning. Good luck and I hope it goes well. Andreas, I respectfully disagree. IMO Maserati has made some of the most beautiful cars and successful racing cars ever built. Look at John's A6GCS for example. Also, if you have the chance to watch Speed's Victory By Design on Sunday evenings, the last one was Alain deCadenet driving the Maserati sports racers from the 50s and 60s. Extraordinary machinery (and a lucky "bloke" to drive it all too). Yes, Ferrari has some work to do with Maserati to rebuild the brand and improve the platform, but it is a heritage brand (Moss, Asari...) and you are looking at a car that was largely in place when Ferrari acquired the business. Philip
I'm not saying they're not great cars. Actually the Biturbo was one of my personal fav cars of all times. My point is, that we are a Ferrari club and not a Maser club. If I were into Masers, I would join their club and would not welcome a Ferrari if space was limited. So let me repeat: FERRARIS NOT BEING ABLE TO PARTICIPATE IN A FCA EVENT BECAUSE A MASER TOOK THEIR PLACE IS IMHO WRONG. Now you can say, that the Ferraris at Oak Street came too late. But then I have to say, how about not letting the Masers in in the first place and keep those slots open for Ferraris?
I taped that Victory By Design. It's good. I like the old Masers,up until the Bora's and Merak's and Ghibli's. Sorry,No "Chrysler TC's by Maserati"! I just think that the new ones are very "plain","bland" "generic". Certainly,nothing New and Exciting. My humble opinion,ofcourse! And,I do agree that maserati has a rich racing history. But,I'd personally,like to see an Italian exotic looking just that. Exotic. Performance? Well,these days,just about any car from anywhere has that. Look at those Qvale Mangusta's. They can't even give those away! There's an ad in this months DuPont Registry for some dealer back East. "Take $25,000.00 off the MSRP" And,IMO,the new Masers are in the same boat.(or came over from Italy on the same one )
WOW! I guess we found Andreas's nerve here??? Someone should buy him a Maserati calender... I would like to come to the meeting myself to see what it's about, seeing i am probably the newest member here, just got my FCA membership stuff in the mail. But, i have had other commitments for this weekend and won't be able to make this meeting, but i am looking forward to coming to some of the events this year, my 328 has been locked up for many years and wants to get out and be with other Ferraris.... I got my 328 last july with 5200 original miles on it and now it has about 9200 miles on it... Next year i'm sure i will get close to 20k by the end of the year. Just don't tell my insurance company...
Yes, on the nerve exactly. Let me clarify something (before I continue with my "rage against the maser machines"): I applaud our FCA board for doing all the great work they do to give us all the wonderful events. And so don't take my remarks as a criticism of what happened in 2003. I mentioning this in the hope, that we can improve on this for this year. And chances are we will: I think I remember Mike saying, that the layout of Oakstreet 04 will be different, two lines I believe, so there will be more room and hopefully this all will be a mood point. Other than Oakstreet I can't recall an event where they actually took away from Ferrari slots. Going back on the campaign trail: If the whole Maser deal had a natural source, I bet they'd get a lot greater welcome. E.g. when Ferrari needed to homologate Dinos and they put the engine into the Fiats. Or when Lancia took the Dino engine to start winning rally after rally. But in this case a marketing schlemil thought one day, that the easiest way to peddle those Japanese looking Masers would be by burdening the Ferrari marque with it. Talk about a free ride. I bet not all Ferrari dealers were happy when that was announced, but I also bet they had no choice. Same goes probably for Forza, the magazine: I bet FNA wouldn't have given them any reporter deals or ads if they hadn't accepted to write about Masers. But we are a club of private citizens, we don't have to accept this like lambs. Toyota was smart enough to fool the American market in believing a Lexus is NOT a Toyota. Let's not make the reverse mistake with the Masers. They are NOT Ferraris. (stepping off my soap box now)