While holidaying in Italy last summer, CarShowroom visited the ‘Museo Ferrari’ just around the corner form the famed factory in Maranello.
Now, with warm weather returning to Italy, the museum has been re-opened by Ferrari President Luca di Montezemolo – extended by more than 1,000 square-metres and housing a permanent exhibition of the world’s most significant Ferrari racing and road cars.
The extra space has enabled the Museo Ferrari to display more acclaimed vehicles such as the 275 GTB4 owned by Steve McQueen and the Mondial T Cabrio driven by Al Pacino in the movie ‘The Scent Of A Woman’.
While tours inside the Ferrari factory are strictly for Ferrari owners, we can vouch for the quality of the museum and the public tours which take you inside the gates of the Maranello factory (but not inside the buildings) and tour the F1 race team HQ and Fiorano test track. Even if you’re not a Ferrari fan, the sight of 10 identical brand-new Ferrari 458 Italias parked in a side street within the Ferrari compound and awaiting delivery to customers is enough to get you dreaming of a Lotto win.
Last week Ferrari also held one of its seasonal ‘open days’ when 15,000 friends and family of its employees toured the facilities and got to see where the world’s best-known sports cars are made.
We spent a whole day at Ferrari and stayed at the relatively new Ferrari-themed Maranello Village hotel (complete with F1 car in the lobby and Ferrari merchandise for sale). It’s located at 12 – 41053 Viale Terra delle Rosse, Maranello which is about two minutes from the factory and is used by many of the British F1 technicians employed by Ferrari who operate on a ‘FIFO’ (fly-in-fly-out) system like Aussie miners (going home to their families in the U.K. at weekends).
One piece of advice: We were there on a weekend and the factory shuts at midday Saturday (the museum and tours keep running). This means Maranello shuts too so you’ll find no petrol stations open and even very few restaurants trading (although Maranello Village recommended ‘La Gazelle’ restaurant outside town and not on the tourist trail and despite little English being spoken we enjoyed on of the best meals in three weeks in Italy).
