Iiiiiii’vvvveeee goooot a gooooolden tiiiiiiicket, that’s honestly how I felt today going through the historic gates of the Ferrari factory, only what I was going into see was much better, wonka only had a sweetie factory, this was Blumin Ferrari, no oompa loompa’s here, just pure Italian stallions.
I really don’t know where to start to be honest, today has really been an assault on the senses, too much to see, too much to take in, an AMAZING experience that I’m very lucky to have been able to have.
Our tour started at 10am at the Galleria, we had a quick 30 mins in the Galleria which was good as there was a room closed when I went yesterday which was open today so I had a chance to check it out. It was the F1 room, with all the F1 cars from around 2001 to 2008, they can’t display any cars any less than 2 years old, the technology is still new enough that they can’t just have Joe public from McLaren in having a look :)
F1 Room in the GalleriaFrom the Galleria it was on the bus and through the Factory gates, it really was amazing to drive into the factory, just think of the people that have been through those gates, Enzo Ferrari, Michael Schumacher, Gilles Villeneuve, Niki Lauda, me, Fangio, Franco, ok Franco was just a wee guy on the production line today, but he plays an important role and deserves a mention.
The factory is just like a little town inside, all the streets are named after famous Piloti(drivers) as they’re know in Italy, you only get a street named after you if you’re a world champion and you get a whole square named after you if you’re Michael Schumacher 7 times world champion, 5 with Ferrari, quite a record. Not surprisingly there are Ferrari’s everywhere, body shells moving around the complex, cars with their protective plastic getting their first taste of being driven.
The tour starts by showing some of the new architecture, the wind tunnel is first, designed by Italian architech Renzo Piano and is used in the design of the road and F1 cars. We then got to see the new R&D centre which is just across from the Mechanical centre which is our first stop on the tour.
Windtunnel designed by Renzo Piano
In here the engines are built, at one end of the hall there is a dislay of the various cars Ferrari make, the reason for having them there is to remind the employees what they’re making as they won’t always see their completed work, so it’s there to inspire the employees to do a good job.
Display of Ferrari's to inspire the employees. Would work for me :)
All the components for a Ferrari engine are built on site in the foundry, the aluminium is melted down and moulded into the various components for an engine. The engine components go through various processes in the mechanical centre, all the rough metal parts are smoothed off, the valve guides and valve seals are installed by Romeo and Juliet(will come back to this) all the crankshafts are balanced and all the cylinder heads are X-ray’d to ensure there are no cracks etc.
Mechanical workshop where the road car engines are created
Romeo and Juliet is a cool machine, it gets the name from the fact they work together with Romeo delivering a ring to Juliet(a valve seal), romeo dips the seal into liquid nitrogen which shrinks it slightly, it’s then given to Juliet where it’s inserted into the cylinder head, the valve seal then expands at room temperature which gives it a very tight seal, very clever stuff.
From the engine works we move onto the main assembly line for the V8 cars, this was amazing, we got to see the new 458 Italia and the California being built from a bare shell to the completed car rolling off the line.
Ferrari California near the end of the production line
It’s fascinating to see these cars come to life, the production line is very high tech, the cars roll along each station on the line at 20 min intervals on a lift system that raises or lowers the car depending on what’s being installed and can rotate the car 180 degress to allow workers to work on the underside of the car whilst still maintaining proper posture.
There’s so much to see on the assembly line, one of the most impressive parts is where the chasis and engine are married together, the engine and rear chasis is basically lifted as one section into the body of the car, all done by machine then everything connected and bolted up by hand, robots are only used here to make life easy for the workers these cars are very much hand made.
It was amusing to see that when one of the cars was rotated as it got to a new station a screwdriver fell out, much to the embarrassment of the workers one of which had to return it to the previous station, it now makes sense why these cars are very rarely perfect, character I think it’s called :).
The other very impressive part of the line is where the front and rear windscreen are installed, again all done by robot but very precise and very fast, it takes it time to ensure it’s in the correct position, checking at various different points then when it’s happy wham, in goes the screen, no hesitation and a perfect job every time.
From the main assembly line we went to the F1 facility, this is where all the work is done to build the Formula one cars, we were unlucky as the cars were all there yesterday but had been shipped out today for the grand prix at the weekend, oh well, there was a spare chasis in the workshop though which was good to see. We then moved onto the engine assembly point, each driver gets 8 engines per season, 1 engine for every 2 races so 16 engines are required for the main 2 cars then there are some built for testing, new development etc. It takes 100 days from start to finish to build an F1 engine and the most amazing thing about them is the size and weight, they’re very small, much smaller than a road car engine and in comparison to the engine in the Ferrari Enzo road car which weighs around 180Kg an F1 engine weighs 90Kg, that’s just slightly heavier than I am.
Moving on from there we went to the F1 Cliente and FXX areas, F1 Cliente is basically where very rich people buy old F1 cars and Ferrari maintain and store them at the Factory, then the client gets to play in them at various organized exhibition events. It’s costs around 1million Euros to buy the car then it’s 20k per month for storage at the Fiorano circuit then it costs to have the cars shipped to events then if you crash it can cost anywhere form 60K to over 100K for a single piece of body work to repair the car.
OOoohhhh F1 cars and lots of 'em
One things for sure you need to have some pretty deep pockets to get involved in that. The FXX program is another expensive hobby for rich clients, it’s a GT car program not single seater and the current program is the 599XX, again clients get to drive these cars at special events, they can’t drive them on the road or take them home and it again costs just over a million Euro’s for the pleasure, but my god do they look and sound good, If my 6 numbers ever come up I’d consider doing it just for a year maybe :).
Oooooohhh FXX cars
While we were looking round the cars we heard a roar coming from the Fiorano track, it was one of the 599XX’s going round, it is fast, it’s loud and generally just awesome and it was great to see it so close up. It was being filmed by the BBC and driven by Martin Brundle ex-F1 driver, so you might see me dribbling at the fence as the camera pans following the car, I’ll need to look out for it on the next couple of F1 programs.
So that was the end of the tour, lasted around 3 hours in total, like I said, just so much to take in but definitely an experience not to forget.
It really means a lot to people to be able to do this, there was an older gentleman on the tour with us, he didn’t look too well and we were chatting afterwards, I asked him how he enjoyed the tour, he was just ecstatic, his words were “It’s ok, I can die now” I hope he was joking……
**All factory pictures in this post have been borrowed from the internet, cameras aren't allowed on the tour
