After a dinner at the Ristorante Cavalino directly across from the Ferrari factory and good night sleep at the Planet Hotel (also across the street), our next stop on the agenda was the Ferrari tour which began at 10am. We arrived at the Ferrari factory where we were greeted by our guide, Kim and another hostess, Daniela. The greeting was more business-like than cordial and included the surrender of our camera equipment in exchange for our guest badges. We were escorted through the famous arch under Enzo’s old office where we boarded the Ferrari Bus. It wasn’t an actual Ferrari, but it was painted red with a large prancing horse emblazoned in front and Its interior was decorated with carbon fiber accents and more prancing horses embroidered in the headrests.
We were driven around to the rear entrance of the sprawling Ferrari campus where we were first taken into the Development Center known internally as "The Brain," modern, tastefully designed, building with a glass exterior that houses design teams and lots of futuristic looking scale models. We walked upstairs to the top floor, which opened to a walkway surrounded by shallow reflection pools that gave the illusion of even more space and more glass. We were brought into a large screening room with a Rosso Corsa-colored floor and white leather theater seats. They put on a video of a 430 winding through the hills of Mexico in La Carrera Panamerica with an awesome soundtrack of its V8. As the film finished, we were all handed audio guides not unlike ones your get in a museum to use throughout the tour.
After watching the video, Daniela set us off on the rest of the tour with Kim. We walked across the street to "La Nuova Meccanica", the New Mechanical Machining building, where the engines parts are made. On our short walk across the street, we were only allowed a view Ferrari’s "top secret" wind tunnel from the outside. The tunnel, designed by Renzo Piano, was completed in 1997. The tunnel, which had been used solely by the F1 team, is now used for the GT cars as well. A GT car demands as much as 5,000 hours in the wind tunnel before it is completed, whereas Formula 1 cars are tested continuously. 1:3 or 1:5 scale models are used for testing, but the tunnel can also accommodate full-size models. The tunnel is equipped with a metal rolling road that is said to simulate any conditions found on the track. Scale models can also be used to simulate different set-up and movements including rolling yaw, oversteer, and pitching. (I’m not exactly sure how all that works but I’m taking their word on it).
Upon entering the New Mechanical building, I couldn’t help but notice how clean and bright the building felt, not to mention how quiet it was for a 15K sq. meter machining facility. This of course is not by chance. Ferrari puts tremendous effort into creating the best working conditions for its employees. La Nuova Meccanica almost gives the feel of being outside with loads of natural light and plants. The plants serve a dual function as being visually pleasing but also as a visible measure of air quality within the building. Noise levels are controlled and are said to never to exceed 73 decibels. Production in the building continues around the clock. Three shifts of employees each work eight-hour stints. The facility runs 24 hours a day, 6 days a week leaving Sunday as a rest day. Kim, our guide, made it a point (on more than one occasion) to explain that employees are encouraged to be innovative and creative and are rewarded for ideas that elicit change. A board tracks each employee’s contributions, and, after a certain number they’re rewarded with passes to an F1 race or something of the like. Along the lines of keeping its employees in good spirits and being a desirable place to work Kim told us that Ferrari also offers doctors, nurses, and gym facilities to employees and their families.
In the New Mechanical there are 15 work stations manned by a total of approximately 50 employees at all times. One area is not manned by any human personnel, but rather a set of robotic arms named Romeo and Juliet. Romeo and Juliet work in tandem to perform a thermo dynamic experiment every few seconds. The valve guides are picked up and examined for quality and then dipped into liquid nitrogen to cool them to -140C which shrinks the guide four to six microns, while the cylinder heads are heated to 160C, this allows the guide to be inserted into the head. Thermal shock then completes the seat. The crank shafts are also machined in the New Mechanical, and a completed crank takes 35 days from start to finish. Cylinders and heads are also manufactured onsite. Ferrari prides itself on being the only manufacturer with its own foundry on site. Maserati and Ferrari (and Alfa 8C) motors are machined and assembled a the factory. The facility produces about 60 motors a day, of which 30 go to Maserati and 30 go to Ferrari.
Prior to leaving the Facility each part goes through the final testing area called the "Sala Metrologica" where numerous dimension and calibration tests are performed. While touring the New Mechanical, there is plenty to catch your eye apart from awesome looking aluminum block thermo dynamics experiments, and machining of crankshafts. The building houses a number of museum quality cars. Some were owned by Ferrari, including a breathtaking example of a 275 GTS, an F1 race car devoid of its motor and drivetrain (which as part of the demonstration of how light the cars are can be rolled back and forth with one finger), a 355 finished in just its aluminum body without paint. There was another 355 on display that had been driven around the world by Ferrari and press. Others cars in the building were customer cars that had been through Ferrari’s restoration facility, a service which enables owners to send their cars to the factory for a complete overhaul. Some of the notable cars on site to note were a 288 GTO, a 250 Lusso and a Barchetta. Kim mentioned that a fresh rotation of these restored cars were on display daily.
Unfortunately, the engine building area was not part of our tour this go around, however the last time I visited the factory we were able to watch all the parts being put together to create the finished product. The 8-cylinder engines were worked on by two people, whereas the 12-cylinder engines were assembled start to finish by one person. The process looked more like a surgical operation than engine building. Oh well, maybe next time.
After the New Mechanical, we made our way over to the paint facility, the "Nuova Verniciatura." Ferrari does not allow public access inside, this time not for secrecy, but for health precautions due to chemicals in the paint and bonding agent. However, the glass siding on the building not only provided for a bright working environment, but also allows guests a good view of the final application of paint. What we could not see was the base coat being applied to the chassis and bodies (which are supplied from the Carrozzeria Scaglietti in Modena). We were told that the bodies are vertically dipped and rotated 360 degrees in a chemical base coat to which the paint adheres. Of the Ferraris coming off the line, the most popular color is red accounting for 30% of all cars. The bodies were first sprayed by hand, then finished by robotic arms. This method is not unique to Ferrari, as Maserati utilizes the same facility and undergoes the same process. So the finish on your new Maserati should always look as nice as your Ferrari upon delivery.
From the paint facility we hopped back on the bus and headed to the Montaggio Vetture or the Car Assembly Area. This building also houses the Engine test beds. The 8-cylinder engines are bench tested for approximately 45 minutes to 1 hour and the 12-cylinder engines are tested for 3-5 hours due to their size and complexity. The engines are tested at gradually increasing speeds in soundproof rooms up to 6500 rpm and are left to run in at those speeds until the testing is complete. Among other things, the motors are checked for leaks, temperatures and emissions. The power curves are outlined and the results for each motor are stored in a database.
Some 5700 Ferraris cars came off the assembly lines last year. Of those, 30% were distributed to North America, 10% to the UK, 10% to Germany, and 10% to Italy. There are 2 production lines in the assembly area, one for the 8-cylinder cars, and the other for the 12- cylinder cars. The 8-cylinder line, comprised of 430’s (Spiders, Coupes, and Scuderias,) was dominated by Scuderias. The 430’s take a total of 3 days to complete once the body and chassis arrive. The 8-cylinder cars spend 24 minutes at each station along the assembly line and are oriented front first as the engines are in the rear. The 12-cylinder cars (currently the 599 and the Scaglietti) take 5 days to complete and spend 54 minutes at each of the 32 assembly stations, and are oriented headed rear first as motors are in the front. Due to the timing per station, the 8-cylinder cars can be built on the 12 line, but the 12-cylinder cars cannot be built on the 8-cylinder line. Ninety-seven percent of all the cars coming off the line are equipped with the F1 paddles. So much for those old signature aluminum gated shifters…
Also in the Mantaggio Vetture but in another section, is the upholstery room. This is where a busy team of mostly women were assembling all the interior pieces and wrapping them with leather. The interior of the Ferrari generally requires about 3 cows per car to fully upholster (that’s upwards of about 15,000 cows per year if you’re counting). Ferrari uses cows that are normally butchered anyway, Ferrari only requests that its cows are not fenced in barbed wire to minimize blemished hides. The skins are laid flat and sections are precision cut with a programmed laser leaving minimal waste. Once cut, a swarm of sixty skilled seamstresses busily trim, sew and glue leather to virtually every surface of the interior. Customers can choose leather from a palette of 12 colors to personalize their Ferrari. Additionally, they can choose the color of the stitching, but it doesn’t stop there…one can also customize the length and width of the stitching if they are so neurotic.
Once the cars are come of the line, they are taken out on the road and are driven around the roads of Maranello. A team of six guys with quite possibly the best jobs in the world get to take every Ferrari on a 50 kilometer road test. After that, the cars are ready to be picked up by or delivered to their customers. That concluded our tour. Before leaving we were allowed to give our personal inspection of a dozen or so of the completed cars. I was partial to the black 430 scuderia with the silver stripes. The tour convinced me of one thing, if you don’t own a Ferrari and have the opportunity to take the tour, you will leave wanting one…badly. But don’t try to get a job at the factory with the hope of getting your hands on one, all of the cars are built to customer specifications and Kim informed us of a rule that prevents Ferrari employees from owning a Ferrari, not even the top brass.
The legendary Ferrari prancing horse symbol was passed on from a highly decorated Italian World War I pilot, Francesco Baracca, who had it painted it on the fuselage of his aircraft. Enzo put the horse on a yellow shield (the color of Modena) with the tricolore on top and used it as the badge of his racing team. The Ferrari red was simply the color assigned to Italian cars competing in Grand Prix Races by the International Automobile Federation in the early years of the last century.
Tomorrow, Lamborghini.
Best, Dave
odd rule on the in-house ownership ban.
sounds like a dream though.
That picture looks like it did when I went to Maranello, make sme wanna go back really bad. I didn’t get as good of a tour though.