Italian car museums and factory tours

[Corranga]

Slightly off topic, but this place isn't really busy enough to warrant a whole new thread I think...

Has anyone done the German 4 (BMW, Porsche, Merc, Audi) and if so, are they worth it? Did you factory tour as well, or just museum and are they big enough to warrant a day each?

Chris

[Shug]

Slightly off topic, but this place isn't really busy enough to warrant a whole new thread I think...

Has anyone done the German 4 (BMW, Porsche, Merc, Audi) and if so, are they worth it? Did you factory tour as well, or just museum and are they big enough to warrant a day each?

Chris

Not getting narky, but if you think it's not busy enough, why bury the question on an existing thread? Genuine question? That'll only reduce potential readers, one would think?

[douglasgdmw]

Chris,

We have done 2 of the German ones (Porsche/Mercedes) so if it evolves into a new thread then let me know and I can respond

[Andy G]

Dj - you can hire some neat machines near the Ferrari factory.

Didn't do the museum (was in the factory), but the restaurant across from the gates is worth a visit for lunch

[Corranga]

Slightly off topic, but this place isn't really busy enough to warrant a whole new thread I think...

Has anyone done the German 4 (BMW, Porsche, Merc, Audi) and if so, are they worth it? Did you factory tour as well, or just museum and are they big enough to warrant a day each?

Chris

Not getting narky, but if you think it's not busy enough, why bury the question on an existing thread? Genuine question? That'll only reduce potential readers, one would think?

Yeah, point taken you're absolutely right. I'll do my bit and post a new thread

Chris

[DJ]

A short write up to follow up on this post. In the end I booked with http://www.motorstars.org/ Wasn't that straightforward as my payment was initially returned as his rather primitive on-line booking system failed but once I resorted to his requested fax (who uses these nowadays!) I got there in the end. Probably not the cheapest way to do it but it ticked the convenience factor. The guy running it is a one-man-band who used to work in most of the factories and now doing tours. Was just a couple of retired guys from San Francisco and me booked in for the day. Pagani factory was closed! They are moving factory just now so no tours are available nor is it open to the public until around July. So I booked a day that took me to Lamborghini, Ferrari and what I initially thought was Maserati.
The Maserati museum was actually not a factory museum but the private Panini family collection. We headed away out to the countryside and up a traditional Italian drive a Parmigiano Reggiano making farm where at the back was a huge, but modern 'shed'. Panini is the sticker album guy (as most of us will know) who made his fortune not from the magazines but by patenting peelable stickers. His hobbies were his cheese farm and collecting old cars and when he died he has left the car exhibition open for free entrance for all. Thinking this might be half a dozen cars, I would say this was the best tour of all three. Access is completely unsupervised, no ropes etc around almost all cars and a wide variety of cars, most of which are Maserati. A fair collection of bikes too. It was like a form of barn find. Outside there were a few old things too like Lamborghini tractors, and old cars not in the museum. We were the only ones in the place. If heading to supercar valley I would say worth seeking out, although not easy to find.









And a slight off-topic photo next, but we got an extra quick tour of the cheese making and storage areas. It's something ridiculous like 450 litres of milk (hence the cow farm) are used to produce 3 roundels which are worth about €500 each. A few €500 worth lying in storage awaiting 3 years to mature. Bought a wedge. Italian parmigiano reggiano is soooo different to the crap we call parmesan and can get from the supermarket.



Next it was off for lunch. We were in that restaurant you mentioned Andy, opposite the Ferrari factory gates. Nice platter of hams and cheese

Ferrari tour and museum was very professional, as you would expect. Plenty of staff wandering around to help. Asked a couple of questions and they couldn't have been more helpful or engaging in their reply. Were also quick to chase anyone away who tried to touch a car or step over the boundary line surrounding most of them, but to be expected I suppose. Didn't appreciate how many one-off cars Ferrari produce, or specials they will do for a customer who wants a unique design. I mainly took photos of the old stuff as opposed to the F1 gallery or modern cars.








Then it was off to Lamborghini. Renmure - you mention your friend wasn't as enthusiastic and I kind of felt the same way. Perhaps it was because it was the end of the day and it had been great so far but after noticing a few things I probably started looking for faults and easily found them. All in it was very good but for a world renowned brand, it needs a bit of fresh attention. Loved all the cars on display but in contrast there was a very young girl covering both floors who knew nothing about the cars. She told me to go downstairs to reception to ask and there were two other young girls as equally unhelpful. The cars looked great from a distance but then spotted one of the concepts was sitting there with a flat tyre On looking inside the convertibles, there was a good layer of dust on the centre consoles and dash. That's when I started noticing lots of rubber marks on the floor that hadn't been cleaned when moving the cars into position and perhaps I am being slightly OCD when I then noticed none of the the wheel centres were straight! Don't get me wrong,its a good little couple of floors - quite small - but just needs someone to pay it a bit more attention given its status. I was probably also disappointed that one of my favourite cars of all times - the Muira -was on display in probably one of the least flattering colours they could find The photo flatters it compared to in the metal.










All in, a good day out. Left Bologna at 8.30am and home by 6pm having taken in 3 car museums a cheese factory and a good lunch!

[DJ]

There has been a superb program on this week with a chef touring that area in a Maserati, can't remember what it's called, I'll try to find out later, he went to the Ferrari museum, looked ace. The town of Ferrara looked wort a visit too.

Oh, and visited Ferrara for a day too. Cracking wee town, big central castle and courtyard, that was having a festival the day we visited.

[BigD]

The panini shed looks excellent.

[Corranga]

Nice little write up. I feel like I've been to the lambo museum already, I toured it on Google maps

Chris