60th Anniversary of Ferrari in America Event -Oct 12 in Beverly Hills - Who's Going?

email sent from FCA.........

Time for another update. Well, we are now just under two weeks from the once in a lifetime event

Sunday will include a parade of 1,000 cars and a second parade led by Luca di Montezemolo


This is a copy of an email I sent..............

Anna,

I drove my Ferrari down from Seattle to participate in the 1,000 car parade. What I got instead was a parking spot.

A detailed summary for participants sent out a day or two before the event would have been helpful.. I did get the email with the general schedule of events. I went back through all my previous correspondence & pieced some of the details, but nothing specific pertaining to "the drive"

I arrived at "The Grove" with the 1st group at 7 am. I, & many others, drove around the block in packs looking for ANY signs or people to direct us.

The initial gathering at "The Grove" should have said to drive to the Valet entrance.

From there I was directed to drive through the arch on Camden to be counted. Upon my arrival to the arch I asked about "The parade". They had no info & told me to park in the lot at the end of the street on the right.

I was there with 40-50 other Ferrari's. I asked around that group, but no one knew what the next step was.

Around noon I saw the long line of Ferrari's driving through the arch. Apparently they had been staged at a local high school. How they knew where to go & when to gather is a mystery to me.

Part of the original 60 chosen ones? Seams others tagged along & that group grew larger. When they arrived they were split up & drove down Camden.

I know there is nothing that can be done about this now. Just venting & am extremely disappointed in FCA or FNA (whoever was responsible)

I received the email on Sept 4 & signed up the same day. I was excited & looking forward to the experience.

Had I known I was going to drive 2,400 miles to park my car I would have flown instead.............

Emery
FCA member

 

I am glad I am not the only one complaining. BTW the event other wise was wonderful. The Rodeo display was amazing.

Geno

 

That is my friend's car. It is the last 599 6 speed made and the only one in 2008. They made around 31 in 2007

 

Considering the area and the projected car count, there was no possible way for that "1000" car parade to have ever worked out. I doubt many of us with vintage Ferraris would have even wanted to endure that over-heating slow crawl(the traffic during the Monterey week is bad enough). It would have been nice to have worked out a large,connected area for most of the cars to park or at least a minimum of security for the cars parked in remote areas.
All that being said, it was still an amazing array of cars that will never be seen together again and I am glad that I attended. We arrived early, had little difficulty parking, enjoyed the cars, avoided the ridiculous "hospitality room" and left early to avoid the traffic mess. We were there long enough to witness the Meyer and Ferrari entourage walking through the crowd with the camera crew sternly admonishing everyone to move out of the way-hilarious!

 

can anyone tell me who Bruce Meyer (?) interviewed on the podium? In a picture I see Gurney, Bondurant, Theys (?) and someone I don't recognize.

Thank you,
William

 

0967 GT
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I was too busy taking pics of the Ferrari to notice that Jillian was staring me down!
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I think it needs a detail
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maybe I dont spend enough time in tony places but I thought the view was excellent
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Not sure who she was but she looks like she has the right stuff to run Ferrari!
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I thought the logo was cool , just wish they sold t shirts ....although there were a couple of guys that had mechanic shirts with this on the back ...the lanyards were cool also
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Bob,

Not sure where you got your misinformation about the event but it wasn't from the FCA. And I doubt it was from FNA or from your dealer, or from Mr. Montezemolo himself, who sent a personal invite to every owner in North America last week. I know you are not an FCA member which is also fine, but it does seem that you have a bone to pick with the FCA. I don't know why that is but you need to have your facts straight before misinforming everyone else with your posts about the 60th anniversary event.

Don't take this the wrong way, we are always interested in finding ways to do things better for our members. And we don't claim to be perfect in our execution of these types of events, we always learn new things when doing new kinds of events. But unfortunately some things, really most things with the 60th Anniversary were out of our control and even some of the people that were registered went out of their way to sabotage our best efforts. We did not encourage anyone to ship their car across the country to be in the parade. We have over 5500 members, of which over 1,000 live in California. It was FNA that asked us to provide help with making the 60th anniversary the largest gathering of Ferrari owners in north America and our efforts were in support of this request. It did not happen the way you suggested in a previous post.


First and foremost this was not a typical FCA event. The entire event was planned and executed by Ferrari North America and the Ferrari factory and by most accounts they did a great job. It was planned as a celebration of 60 years in the US and FNA and Ferrari spent millions of dollars and countless man-hours planning and executing the event and it was all free to those that attended. They assembled some of the most amazing and iconic Ferraris ever assembled together at the same time. They arranged parking for 1,000 Ferraris in BH not an easy task. For this they should be commended and yet there are some that would instead condemn their efforts and actually complain that Ferrari does not care about them as customers. I think the 60th Anniversary Celebration is proof to the contrary. The truth is that Luca di Montezemolo had a hand in the idea of getting 1,000 Ferrari owners to come and be a part of the celebration, so they could actually participate via the parade and the Arch counter which was a way for them all to participate and make history with the event.

The Ferrari Club of America was chosen by FNA to help support this effort and as the only Ferrari Club in the world with over 5,500 members, over 1,000 of which live in California, it seemed quite logical as the FCA and FNA already work on many levels together. We the FCA accepted the challenge and set about putting together a team of FCA member volunteers to produce the Gathering of Ferrari in support of the 60th Anniversary, ‘The Race Thru The Decades 1954-2014’ and FCA National stepped in to support the SouthWest Region financially and logistically if needed.

Unfortunately, the City of Los Angeles and the City of Beverly Hills are not good political friends. They would not allow a parade of 1,000 cars, so it was decided to change to an unofficial parade and send cars out as they got to the Gathering Points. So there were many smaller parades that flew under the radar and kept from having a colossal traffic jam in BH. Technically this got us over the issue of a large parade. This parade issue between LA and BH was only discovered after the event had already taken shape. Yes, a caravan parade was what we the club signed up for but unfortunately the Cities of Los Angeles and Beverly Hills have strict rules on parades and we could not meet those rules. At FNA's suggestion we made the changes to make it work and moved on. As for parking, think about it. How much does it cost to close off streets and takeover whole parking garages. We are a not-for-profit organization, and to do this without charging anything would have bankrupt the club. Without FNA and Ferrari covering the cost of street closings and handling the parking, this event would not have happened.

We were not delusional enough to think that we could get all 1,000 FCA members in California to come to the event in LA without involving members and owners outside of California. And Ferrari did not think that this was very probable either. We asked some members in far flung states if they would be interested in attending and everyone of them questioned said yes, they would at least like to know about it and make that decision themselves. Can you imagine if we only invited owners in California. and didn't invite anyone else. Yes, that would of worked out well. So we agreed to and Ferrari insisted that we allow non-FCA members to join the Parade of a 1,000 and that we host non-FCA members in our Hospitality area. Ferrari agreed to send emails to their client list and dealer client list and they carried thru as promised, so we actually reached out to many thousands of Ferrari owners that were non-FCA members for this event. Also consider that in the beginning FNA was providing the tent to us and we were just going to cover the costs of manning the Hospitality tent and supply the food and drinks, which seemed like a very reasonable lower end cost to incur and the right thing to do in support of Ferrari and our FCA membership as well. Things were moving along with all the plans for the event and there were just a few bumps here and there but as we got closer to the event, bigger challenges were to come.



Just three weeks before the event Luca di Montezemolo lost a fight with the FIAT board and was forced to resign as chairman. We were told the event would go on, and that the Chairman would actually perform his last ‘ACT’ as chairman at the 60 Anniversary in LA. The ‘Official’ attendance skyrocketed. The event now had the added element of a farewell party for Mr. Montezemolo and the whole event took on a life of its own. In fact, the last two weeks it was a moving target, both literally and figuratively. The first thing to go was our tent. Ferrari needed the space with the new commitments due to Mr. Montezemolo resignation and the new attendees. We understood the issues at hand and so we scrambled to find a replacement hospitality venue and fortunately with the help of FNA we were able to acquire the only space available which was the Luxe hotel roof Terrace. So with just two weeks to go we arranged ‘Hospitality’ space for what looked like a few hundred people maybe a 1000 at the most and again the club stepped up and spent about 15 grand to make this happen. We charged nothing.



As usual the devil is in the details and when it comes to planning an event like this it is paramount that we would get cooperation from both our members and non-member participants by pre-registering. We were at 376 cars registered just two weeks before the event. Being this was not our first rodeo, no pun intended, we had planned for 500 cars, maybe 650 at the most and we kept FNA informed all along the planning timeline. We felt we were ahead of the game at this point. In the second to the last week our numbers shot up to 500, this was not unexpected and we placed our final numbers with the Hotel so we would have enough snacks, wine and drinks. There was just one week to go and we still felt prepared and ready and in fact that is what we planned for. Then with one week to go Mr. Montezemolo sent a personal invitation to every Ferrari owner in the FNA database. In a matter of a couple days we shot past 700 cars registered for the event. The numbers kept on climbing to 800 registered cars. All of our numbers had already been submitted to the hotel catering department, so what do you do? We sucked it up and did the absolute best that we could, we paid more money and kept working thru the issues and challenges that were presented to us, but nothing prepared us for what was to come next. We still felt we could handle 800 cars because we at least knew they were coming, even if we only had a couple days notice. Nothing that money and more hard work couldn't solve, so I authorized our team to spend more money.


We had 3 Gathering Points planned and we were load balancing them, so that no one point got overwhelmed with cars. That is why we sent out three different and unique emails to owners that had registered online. And people were to go to one of the three Gathering Points. But unknown to us at the time, was the fact that someone posted the unique Gathering Point email for the Grove location on FerrariChat and so the Grove was thought to be the main Gathering Point by many on Ferrarichat and somewhere around 200 cars that were not supposed to be at the Grove, showed up at the Grove. As they say the best laid plans……….are not very good when people circumvent the plan. Consequently there was confusion and waiting at the Grove. The other two locations came off without a hitch. Having unregistered cars and cars that were supposed to be at the other Gathering Point along with their owners and guests just showing up unannounced at a Gathering point was not in the plan and it put a severe strain on our ability to service all that had followed the rules and pre-registered for the event, people like you I bet or at least we hope you showed up at the correct Gathering Point.



The Hospitality Terrace was meant to be a place that you could get in out of the extra warm Southern California sun and sit down with a glass of quality wine, coffee, juice, soft drinks or lemonade for the kids and some lite snacks and along with your friends you could then decide what to do next and what to see next at the 60th Anniversary event.

"The 60th Anniversary was A Special Gathering On Rodeo Drive, A day of celebration of the ongoing love affair between Ferrari and the many American clients that have had the joy of driving the Prancing Horse's automobiles on the road and track for six decades. " This is a direct quote from the official event program. That is why we were all supposed to be at Rodeo Drive. And I am curious, did you even read the official program? Here is a quote from the Official Program and again I quote,"The Club is also a much valued and constant touchstone for the Ferrari North American team." We did not come up with the event ideas and the parade as you claimed in a previous post, we were only asked to support FNA in their efforts.

And did you mention the Hospitality Terrace was ‘Free’. It was 'Free' from the get go and it was available to all that brought their cars including members and non-members alike. When was the last time you went to a car show with an open wine bar, an event where you got everything for free, parking, snacks, Penfolds quality wine, coffee, drinks, not too mention the Museo Ferrari, the Le Mans Tributo, Racing Tributo, the Supercar display and 180 of the most beautiful automobiles on earth all for just bringing your car or attending. The FCA in support of FNA and Ferrari SpA provided it all free of charge. And when we were overwhelmed, we didn’t complain we just stepped up spent more money and bought more snacks and drinks and wine to cover the overload.


I am not saying we did a perfect job. I have done this long enough to know that nothing that is this difficult with this many moving parts is ever going to be perfect. If it was easy everyone would do it. But I can say that if you really want to help to put what I am sure you consider to be your constructive criticism to work, then you need to step-up and volunteer to organize an construct an event or at least volunteer to work at an event. You can start by joining the Club and we would gladly follow your lead if you think you can do a better job by showing us. The FCA believes that if you can do a better job than we can do, then you need to be in charge and show us how it is done. That is exactly how I got this job. I complained like you just did to Rick Race the then President of the FCA about how the FCA handled the USGP in Indianapolis in 2000. But the difference is that the FCA actually controlled the USGP event, the 60th not so much. And then basically Rick said I was right, the job can always be done better and that if I truly believed in my criticism that I needed to take over the job and show the FCA how it is done. Being called out, that is exactly what I did, I became the USGP coordinator for 7 years and fast forward 14 years and now I am doing Rick’s job as President of the club.



Seriously, if you have ideas that will help us overcome the obstacles that I just talked about we need your help. And believe me, I have not told you everything that transpired along the 4 months that we planned the Gathering in support of FNA and Ferrari for this event.

Nowhere near the whole story. Parking, placement of cars, the entire event was all planned by FNA and they spent millions and countless hours to make this event a celebration of all things Ferrari. FNA had sway over our little part and they should be commended for being able to pull it off with all the turmoil that is currently going on at Ferrari. The FCA was to plan the Gathering and help FCA members and Ferrari owners alike to actually participate in the event and to be counted as attending. By being part of the count they would get to take part in making history during a once in a life time event. I may be biased but with all that could go wrong and all that went against our plans, we must have done something correctly as I have gotten many thanks from Ferrari owners that did have a great time. My hope is that you will take some time out of your busy life and volunteer to help us provide a better experience for all our members.

At this point I will give you the benefit of the doubt and believe that you only took shots at the FCA and indirectly Ferrari because you were not involved and that given the opportunity you would be more than willing to help make one of these events a great experience for all that attend.

Thanks for listening,

Street&Track
(Joe Adams)

 

Stefan Johansson.

 

In retrospect this seems humorous to me, although it wasn't at the time.

Here's the email I got from FCA:

"You have been selected to participate in a special parade. You will be among the first cars to parade to Camden Drive. Please be early as you will be directed to a special starting area. Please arrive between 7am and 9am at 189 The Grove Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90036. When you arrive, you will be directed to a special staging area. You will be given your commemorative pin, car stickers, and ticket at this location. Please be aware that you will be leaving as soon as you receive your packet and apply your stickers to your vehicle.



The map and directions from the Grove to Wilshire & Camden are attached above.



You will be given a red sticker to place on the driver’s side top corner of your windshield. The red sticker on your windshield allows you to have a special reserved parking spot on Camden. You will be directed to this parking spot after you reach the archway."

In reality the parade and "being among the first cars to arrive on Camden" were two DIFFERENT things. It seems some cars were predetermined to park on the south end of Camden first thing in the morning and NOT be in the parade, while others were to gather at BH High School and arrive as the parade, filling in the rest of Camden.

I was not on the list of entrants at all, so I got a vanilla sticker and went to Camden. When the official was directing us all as a herd to the parking lot I sensed something was wrong and turned around. An official told me the parade group was staging at BH HS and I should turn right on Wilshire and go about 3 blocks, where I would see the HS.

Well, there was a school about 10 blocks down but it was an Elementary school and was all closed up. So I returned to Camden where a different official showed me on my map where BHHS really was. I found the school and had it not been for two tiny signs by a driveway on the back side of the school I wouldn't have found the lot where the Ferraris were.

What was puzzling was that there seemed to be no logic to what cars were in the parade. I expected to have one of each type, but there were 3 Boxers and a random assortment of other cars. Mine was the only 246GT, so I was glad I was in it.

Anyway the event was wonderful and while I was pretty pissed off at one point I enjoyed the day immensely. Now I'm able to look back on it and laugh at the disorganization. Probably too few people with not enough time to plan all that needed to be done.

Jim

 

Never saw Tom Selleck or Don Johnson but I did enjoy seeing these cars on Rodeo

had posters of these cars on my wall as a kid

(Seriously nobody else got their picture taken with the iconic Testarossa?)
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FNA FCA Or BH Parks and rec,,

That many people, need PUBLIC potties
That large of a street event needs street food
That Important of an event should have tokens of the event for sale
This amazing collection of cars should not have been roof parking
The BIG beef I had was NOT feeling INCLUDED in anything not belonging, even though I had the car looking really cool....
Finding out after the fact your not special enough to get a ground parking spot or your not invited to the "IN Club" Gala thats the weird part like being shunned but invited to a over crowded FILTHY dirty "Hospitality" Penthouse... Thats the problem.

All in all a fun event just a weird event on a few key points that perhaps should have been addressed. The 50th event the other year down in Rancho Mirage WOW first class fun.. Just sayin... Compare the two events and this one SUCKED...

 

That car made my day. I was expecting to see rare cars and there was so much beauty there, but a stick 599 was a pleasant surprise.

 

Joe

It was a great event -the original email that went out specifically stated:

"1000 Cars Gather at Rodeo Drive - The Ferrari Club of America will have marshaling points around Los Angeles where you and hundreds of fellow Ferraristi will assemble prior to a grand 1000 Car Procession to Rodeo Drive. At those “Gathering” locations you will be given a 60th Anniversary vinyl commemorative medallion to be placed on your Ferrari; this will be your official credential to be part of the Parade and of Ferrari history as your car is counted by the Factory as part of the celebration!"

Im from the deep south so i understand what procession means..

From Websters Dictionary:
"pro·ces·sion
prəˈseSHən/
noun
noun: procession

1.
a number of people or vehicles moving forward in an orderly fashion, especially as part of a ceremony or festival.

Synonyms parade, procession."


So it was a parade to Rodeo for those that didnt read the letter.

OH and best of all my wife actually had a blast at this event !!! (as compared to other parking lot events)


My only bum was that my my vinyl sticker flew off and was lost in the parade

so if any of the complainers want to give up their sticker I will gladly accept it! please pm me!

ps by the way I make a "mean" smoked tri tip that I can bring to the next event

 

A few of the 100 or so pictures I took...
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Hi Joe,

I'm sorry if in my imagination I blamed FCA for the problems because i just could not want to believe that FNA would have organized a failure in many of us owners eyes.

I ask you one question from the many owners that were upset, if you could do this over what would you do differently? Did you (FCA) or FNA really plan on 1,000 Ferrari's? If so did anyone think what the owners of these cars would feel having to go through what we went through?

But i do not want to be "just a complainer" I will volunteer to help coordinate any future event that FCA is involved with. I will EVEN join your club (even though I hate clubs) to assist in anyway I can.

Best,

Bob Callahan

 

Bob,

That is the kind of response that I gave Rick Race some 14 years ago. Be careful you may end up with my job

Seriously we are not perfect and we can always do a better job and the more help we get the better the job we can do. I am not sure if "failure' is the right word for the 60th Celebration but for me and a majority of participants it was a lot of things but I would not choose failure, but you have a right to your opinion both of us agree that is your right.

Thanks, it is 3am here in the east and I still have to work tomorrow, real work unfortunately.

Thanks again for the response and don't be surprised when someone calls from the SouthWest Region for help with their next event

Joe

 

Thanks for the quick response Joe. By "failure" I did not mean the show. I'm sure that everyone that saw the cars, Ferrari owners, or Ferrari enthusiast, or just car guys and girls loved it. The failure I speak of was from the lowly Ferrari owner that expected more then a "parking place" on a roof top (that BTW, scraped and caused damage to almost all of our cars).

But, hey, there will be a 70th right? lets start planning!

Bob