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The World According to Jaggy - March 29, 2009

Jaggy Goes to Ferrari

Well, there I was. Sitting at the traffic lights on the Via Abertone Inferiore. I had just driven through Maranello. Straight ahead was the road to Modena. On the left of the cross-roads was the Via Fornace with the Ferrari merchandise store on the left and the Ristorante Cavallino on the right. But I was turning right. Waiting for the traffic lights to change.

And when they did change I drove in through the gate pillars and stopped at the security gate. Straight ahead, above the entrance was the single word, Ferrari. The security guard bustled out.

“Senor who?” he asked.
“How do you spell zzaggee?”
J-a-g-g-y!
“Ah, you are expected.”
And I was in.

I bet you’re all surprised, ardent rally fan that I am. But when at home and the first bars of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘The Chain’ hit the speakers, I’m up on the sofa with crisps and Irn Bru ready for the latest action, on and off the track, from the world of Formula 1. Just a petrolhead at heart, that’s me.

As for being a Ferrari fan? No. I was first attracted to Formula 1 by the exploits of Colin Chapman, Ken Tyrrell and Frank Williams, and by the glorious noise of Cosworth V8s, Alfa Romeo’s flat 12, and Matra and BRM V12s. Ferrari? Nope, compared to the British teams it was all red paint and pasta. It always seemed to have the more showy operation, just like the Italian themselves, where style and panache mean more than substance and practicality.

And yet despite the heritage and the success, I never really understood it. I do now. Thanks to Iveco who supply the race trucks and crew buses, and who arranged for my visit.

The Road Cars

Unfortunately I had to leave my camera behind. No photos inside. Disappointment turned to wonder as I set foot on the Viale Enzo Ferrari. As I walked down the tree lined avenue and peeked up the side streets there were glimpses of gleaming red, yellow and metallic painted Ferraris all over the place, plus a few Maseratis.

First stop was the engine shop, a vast, glass-walled, and partially glazed-roof building full of plants, trees, shrubs - and machinery. Temperature and humidity are kept constant throughout the factory and there was a distant mechanical hum in the building. Not noise, and certainly no need for ear defenders.

The alloy castings arrive at one end of the shrine direct from Ferrari’s own foundry and the staff machine, turn and polish the blocks, cylinder heads and crankshafts into jewellery, which are then assembled into V8 or V12 pieces of automotive art. And when they add those unmistakable, red crinkle-finished cam covers with the prancing horse insignia you know you are in automotive heaven.

There’s just one problem, you don’t hear them when they go into the test cells at the end of the assembly line. Each V8 is run through a sequence for 40 minutes while the V12s get a one hour run-through before they are passed on to the car assembly lines.

The engine shop turns out 70 engines a day with a staff of 70 per shift, that equates to one engine per employee. Not a bad ratio, is it?

I then crossed over the Via Raikonen avenue to the paint shop which is sealed, but through the windows I could see a team of two painters tackling the tricky bits of each bodyshell before they were passed on to the robots. Worryingly, I’m sure one of them winked at me, the robots that is.

Then it was across the Via Lauda and up the Via Hawthorn to the trim shop where up to 5 hides are needed for the bigger cars and are worked on by a team of 70, mostly women. The hides are laser cut and then hand stitched for seats, dash and door trims in a basic variety of 12 colours.

Crossing the Via Scheckter and the Viale Enzo Ferrari again, I entered the car assembly plant, a huge cathedral of colour, movement and hushed noise. There are two and a half production lines in there. One line for the V8 cars and another for V12 machines, while the shorter line assembles limited edition models and outrageously expensive one-offs for those ‘special’ clients!

It takes five days to build a V12 car and just two and a half days for a V8 with a total output of some 6,500 cars per year.

Next door with access from the Via Ascari is a brand new assembly facility for the latest California cars which go on sale later this year. Assembly is different here. Whereas the V8 and V12 lines are reminiscent of days gone by where cars are assembled in recognisably progressive stages, the California uses new technology. The cars are built in two halves and late in the process the fabricated and trimmed body is added to the completed chassis.

And here’s the thing. Every single car built on these production lines then goes on a 50 km drive through the town and up into the mountains before it is passed by Quality Control for sale. Which no doubt accounts for some of the wondrous noises that cut through the air periodically as people go about their daily business in the town of Maranello.

Ferrari Formula 1

Even though Enzo Ferrari built his first car and scored his first victory in 1947, the modern Formula 1 facility is as far removed from those humble beginnings as the Tardis is from an original Police box.

The engines and bodywork are made on site and assembled in a five bay workshop which houses the two race cars, the two test driver cars and one spare. Each car has its own dedicated team of 7 or 8 engineers who also travel to all the races. In total some 70 crew members travel to each race in a fleet of 12 Iveco race trucks and crew buses – unless they fly instead of drive.

The race-shop was naked when I was there, they were all in Australia, so I was taken into another building where they prepare the 30 FXX cars which are basically Enzo bodied cars with 860 hp, 6.3 litre V12s. These are used by rich (make that, very, rich, or, richer than Fred Goodwin rich!) clients in one-make races and at track days. There was another treat in store.

Across the way was yet another complex housing the customer F1 cars. Ferrari sells on its F1 cars to approved clients at the end of each season and will undertake to store and maintain them as well. So if you’ve only got a semi in Bishopbriggs and a single car garage, that won’t stop you buying an F1 car – you can keep it at the factory.

I walked through the raceshop, where five dismantled cars were being worked on including a1977 312 T2, and into the garage itself. My knees turned to jelly. There were 70 F1 cars sitting there gleaming in the sunlight streaming through the skylights. Everything from a 1970 312B to recent model F-series cars. The funny noise that I heard was my chin hitting my breast bone.

Memories

Apart from the visit itself, a number of stupid wee things that I noticed will forever stick in my memory. Take the team bus for instance. Both the bus driver and co-driver’s seats were red, suede race seats with embroidered Ferrari logos, and the guys working in the race shops wore steel toe capped Ferrari trainer bootees. Honest, they were! I nearly mugged them on the spot.

And capping it all was a visit to the Ristorante Montana where I sampled the pasta made by Michael Schumacher’s ‘Mamma’ Rosella. Now I know why he stayed at Ferrari so long, and why he is still with the team!

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