Ferrari Factory Tour

I'm going in late June. Tour arranged by my local dealer. I made reservations at Montana restaurant as well. Can't wait!!!

 

We are scheduled to do the Factory Tour end of May.
Booked in Feb through my dealer.
Took maybe 3 weeks to get a response back from the Factory once the paperwork was submitted.
Looking forward to it.
I'll post pics (James Bond camera pen!).
Only kidding.

 

Do non forget also "PASTICCINO",the restaurant near Maranello ....and you breathe ferrari air.....

 

I remember being impressed watching them cut the seat upholstery from big hides. The Classiche restoration shop was also impressive... Some of the rarest of the rare in that shop.
But the most fun was bombing through the hills just south of Maranello in a rented Fiat 500... A few stretches I drove over and over it was so fun.


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We just finished the visit and it was awesome. We did stay at the Hotel Planet but given the chance again we would have stayed at Villa Maranello (just renovated) and a block from the entrance. Www.hotelvillamaranello.com. The hotel and restaurant are just amazing.....some of the best food we had on this trip.



As some have mentioned, Hotel Planet is a bit tired but it is a $110 a night (we spent twice that on dinner and wine!).

We drove from Venice to Maranello for the factory visit and reached Milan today. The Italians are just great people and really made it easy to get around.

Ferrari is pretty sensitive about photos. One guy got bounced for not following the rules. A better solution than giving last year's Ferrari magazine as a gift might be professional photos of the line and cars. They could easily bind a book with scrap leather and it would be a terrific gift or something to buy. That way they could protect what they don't want others to see and not annoy the workers.

Just by observation, they had more workers in the new racing center than they had building the cars.

 

Glad you had a good time! We also drove in from Venice. We stayed at The Planet, but that was seven years ago. The manager showed us the routes the factory used for road testing, so we took a day to drive some of those. We didn't take the factory tour but by happy coincidence and circumstance we got a private tour of Clasdiche instead. Did you happen to eat at Montana? Did you drive over to Modena?

If there is a next time for us we'll stay at Villa Maranello or the Real Fini in Modena.

 

JD,
We will be doing the reverse drive it sounds like you just did. We drive from Milan to Maranello to Venice, then to Lake Como and back to Milan.

How was the drive? Any pointers?

Thank,

CW

 

I agree about Villa Maranello, I stayed there in November and also thought it was great. Enzo, the owner is a nice guy too and one of the best chefs in the region, he is extremely proud of his cooking ! . The Hotel is in easy walking distance to the factory, the Ferrari museum and the centre of Maranello and they have good parking outside. Its a small hotel , 17 rooms and they make you feel very welcome.

The website is Hotel Villa Maranello ? Hotel 3 stelle categoria superior

M

 

CW,

A lot depends on where you plan on staying in Milan and Venice. If you are staying in or near the center in Milan, it is best to rent the car when you begin your trip to Maranello. There just isn't a lot of value having a car in Milan and no reason to have one when you get to Venice.

Driving into and out of Milan is an experience with lots of turns, crazy drivers and pedestrians who wander in and out of traffic. Given this, I ended up buying a new Garmin Nuvi 57 LMT ($170) and downloading the Italy/Greece maps to it ($70). This was a marriage saver. We are so used to using our iphones for this purpose in the US that most would think that they would work without issue in Italy. This is not the case. There were large sections of the trip as we travelled to and from Maranello that the data signal on the iphones was lost. The Garmin worked flawlessly and rerouted us when there was an accident or advised us of roadwork.

We had two previous Garmins (both Nuvi 2000s) that we thought we could use.....but they wouldn't hold a charge so it was just easier to throw away the 2000s and buy a new one. The old chargers are reusable.

The only issue with the Garmin is that she doesn't speak Italian very well. So when she tells you to take Via Della Republica on the third roundabout exit it comes out: "Take the third exit Viadellpublic at the next roundabout". More than once my wife and I looked at each other and said: "what did she say?". That said, having navigation is a must and takes the guesswork out of the trip.

The autostrada is a toll road similar to the NJ turnpike. You get a ticket when you get onto the road and pay when you get off. There are plenty of rest stops and gas stations on the toll road that do not require you to leave it. Make sure you stay out of the Telepass lanes since they are only for cars equipped with transponders. We average probably 110km speed on the autostrada. That said, people passed us easily doing 150-160km in the left lane. The drive between Milan to Maranello was 2 hours largely based on city traffic and the drive between Venice and Maranello was 2 hours and 15 minutes.

Gas is self service at all the stations I saw. Just make sure to bring a debit card because some of them are finicky about credit cards.

We had excellent weather which made the trip a lot of fun and a beautiful ride.

We didn't get a chance to do Lake Cumo....I have heard it is stunning.

 

We did not get to the Montana although it was on our list to try. We left Venice on April 14th and it took about 2 hours 15 minutes to make the trip to Maranello. We had a scheduled 2 pm factory visit and got there about 11:45 am. We had lunch at a small restaurant across from the hotel and checked in at 1:00 pm.

That evening we went to the Villa Maranello for dinner and met Enzo and his lovely wife. They made us feel at home. Their english was far better than our Italian! We let them set the menu for us and we drank and ate too much! He even rolled out the "Ferrari oil" as an after dinner drink.

 

The Factory tour is a sensory overload. As we arrived in Maranello, test cars were being driven on the roads. Within an hour, we counted over 100 Ferraris parked or on the streets before we began the tour. They were everywhere! Then we started the tour.....

Tour:

Highlights of your Ferrari Factory Tour include a Welcome Speech and visits to:
· GT Division New Mechanical Machining Area and Engine Assembly
· GT Division Wind Tunnel, Product Development Center, and Paint Technologies (outside
only)
· GT Division New Car Assembly Lines
· F1 Division GES Racing Division and Car Assembly
· F1 Division Corse Clienti – F1 Clienti and FXX Division
· Ferrari Museum and Ferrari Store

They start with saying that the tour is a "Privilege" and they want no pictures to be taken by the guests until they reach the museum. In an age of high definition mobile phones, there is great temptation to break this rule. Ferrari goes so far as to place a sticker to cover the camera if you brought your mobile phone along. One guy (not US) broke this rule repeatedly and was "dropped" from the tour as it progressed. He was warned twice by the guide. It just was stupid since the entire group was under CCTV surveillance the entire time.

Engine Building

Ferrari builds engines for Maserati and Alfa Romeo. The tour began with engine building. It is an impressive facility where heads, blocks, pistons, rods all come together. I'm an engine guy so this part of the tour was way over the top. I didn't see anything secret on this part of the tour (just great quality control) but I did notice that the workers almost fell over each other when they saw an attractive female on the tour. My wife and another wife/girlfriend "stopped" the production work several times! I started to understand that these guys are easily distracted and the no photo policy probably has little to do with assembly secrets.

Wind Tunnel and Paint

Seeing the wind tunnel from the outside is interesting but that is it. The chassis/frames for all the cars are built elsewhere and painted before they arrive for assembly. So you do not see the painting facility which is located 20 km away.

New Car Assembly

The highlight is watching the Assembly process. They are set up with roughly 60 stations with a line that moves a car every 30 minutes or so. While it was not completely clear.....it seemed to take 3 days to finish a V8 and four days to finish a V12. A painted frame would arrive and the components to assemble it were staged. Small teams worked the wiring, dash and mechanicals. It was fascinating to watch. Once again no secrets in assembly other than the models don't matter other than by engine distinction. 2015 production resulted in 80% of the cars were V8 and 20% were V12. They actually had some V8s being assembled on the V12 line due to excess capacity.

For the most part guys worked the assembly line and the women cut and worked the interior leather. It looked like about 100 guys on the V8 assembly line and about 50 women working on the interiors. The V12 line had fewer cars staged and a smaller work force at our time of the visit. Allegedly, they run 3 shifts but from our hotel room you could see the V12 line and it was is was stopped for the third shift.

GES racing facility-

They had more people in this place than the entire assembly line. You could see at a distance......technicians were working every aspect of the the chassis, engine and design. You couldn't see what they were doing but they were also easily distracted by the tour groups looking down on them.

Corse Clienti-

I need to make more money! Imagine having Ferrari prep your personal racecar and transport it for you. The FXX and FXXK were well beyond any adjectives I could use to describe them. The shop was full of client cars in various stages of prep. Just crazy....

To add insult to injury they took us to a garage filled with former F1 cars that are up for sale. Of course, you have to currently own "at least 5 Ferraris and promise to not alter the car in anyway". Did I mention that you get a "detuned" engine with it for a starting price of one million euros? Yes.....and people do buy them to race on their "own" tracks.

I started to feel like I wasn't worthy........

Museum-

Continued sensor overload. After 90 minutes or so you arrive at the Museum. There you are overwhelmed with the number of cars Ferrari has created. It really was a privilege to see the history and the history in the making.

My thanks to Ferrari North America and Ferrari of Washington DC for arranging the visit.

 

When I was there in May of 2014 in the F1 area where the older F1 cars were kept they had blankets over parts of the cars. The reason wasn't secrecy, it was to cover the tobacco advertising on the cars (Marlboro etc) which is now illegal.


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In regards to driving, I'd recommend taking the train where possible. In most cities a car is not need and isn't worth the hassle.

My wife and I used the freccia Blanca and Rossa and it was incredible. First class tickets are the way to go and are reasonably priced. Just sick back with some Pavarotti on your headphones and enjoy the scenery. My favorite leg was from Milan to Venice. The train ends right at the vaporetto.

 

Ferrari seems to be treating them likes works of art now. All the F1 cars were uncovered with their sponsor logos in place. Part of buying one meant you could not change any of the decals or even the driver seat.....which begs the question if you would use the car at all. My guess is that most people who buy them simply add it to their collection.

 

Contrary to my "search is your friend" comment, it is cool to see a refresh on the tour experience. Thanks for posting.

I'll add a few of my own observations that may be of interest to others:

1.) I agree that staying elsewhere in Italy and commuting to Maranello for the day (or two) is the best. Italy has just so much to see and there are better places (even Modena) to stay at night. I drove with my brother from the Cinque Terra area to Maranello for the day. Probably a little too far for most, but Maranello was only one day in our visit and our wives were not interested in cars. It worked out just fine.

2.) We parked our car on the street all day for free just around the corner from the factory.

3.) Cavallino Restaurant has a coffee shop around the back that opens early. We arrived an hour ahead of our morning tour time. It was great to soak up the atmosphere and feel the excitement of anticipation while sipping coffee and munching croissants.

4.) The time allotted in the tour for the museum was insufficient for us. We asked our tour guide politely if we could return to the museum after the tour. She took our tickets to the front desk of the museum and had them write a note giving us permission to reenter for free. Nice. We probably spent 2 hours more.

5.) If you want to view the track beyond what you see on the factory tour, you can walk to a good vantage point just a quarter mile down the street. If you stand across the street facing the factory with Cavallino Restaurant to your back, turn left and follow the sidewalk out of town. In about a 1/4 mile there is a small bridge with a clear view of the track. My brother and I watched FXX K #13 blasting around at the time we were there. That car was crazy-fast (and the violence of the downshifts was startling).

The way they spun the story to our tour group was that the car picked the buyer; you picked a car from a former driver with the same shape as you. Good luck if you're over 160 lbs.

 

Thanks for the input JD.

Milan is just a airport for us. Only spending the first night there and then off to Maranello.

I went back and forth on rental car vs train several times. It's almost too close for trains (2-2:30 hours each leg) and a little too far/hassle for the car. But settled on the car. Our travel agent is very good and has parking worked out at each place we are staying..so that will help.

Thanks for the tip on bringing the Garmin and load Italy. I will order one this week.

Sounds like you had a great time at the factory. We are looking forward to our visit.

Best,

CW

 

You guys should've visited the Duomo Cathidral in Milan and if you had more time which we didn't, I wanted to visit the Alfa Romeo. Maybe next time.

 

Agree, put it in the living room !