Day 4 – Maranello

Wow what a day, started off relatively early with a nice breakfast then headed out to check out some of the local Ferrari shops that were closed on Sunday. All the shops sell much the same stuff, lots of great models of cars, t-shirts, books etc could spend all day just browsing.

After that Gill thought she’d try and catch up on some sunbathing while I just hung around at the factory watching the cars go by, then I thought I go for another quick blast into the hills which was much fun.

The Galleria museum is part of the factory tour but I know tomorrow will be hectic as we’re heading to Monaco when the tour is finished so we wouldn’t have a lot of time to check out the museum, so I went today and spent a good 3 hours just taking everything in, taking lots of pictures (and getting very annoyed with the public who kept getting in my way) and a few bits of video for my movie highlight.

Dinner tonight was at the Cavallino restaurant, everyone who comes here has to eat there at least once, it was actually really nice, lots of Ferrari memorabilia everywhere and there must have been some legends who have eaten at those tables.

As we were leaving the hotel for dinner I thought I recognized someone getting out of a car, it was none other than Jake Humphrey, BBC F1 presenter, so I said hello and we had a little chat. It was very nice to meet him. Also now know that Fernando Alonso is in Maranello too as is Chris Harris from Evo and Martin Brundle. Maybe we’ll see them at some point tomorrow.

I’ll leave you for today with some pictures from the Galleria Ferrari.

Big day tomorrow, Tour day…..

Day 3 – Frankfurt to Maranello

Early start today, got out the hotel around 8 as we had 550 miles to get to Maranello, second day on the awesomebahn too. Although the awesomebahn is,well, awesome you really do need to take a lot of care on it, you are required to look so far ahead and to anticipate every stupid move someone could take.

We managed a healthy 165Mph today(GPS verified, speedo showed over 170) and the car was still pulling like a train, but had to slow for traffic, lucky I started to slow when I did, I managed to break just in time to not mount a yellow skoda estate.

After leaving Germany the driving became, well, standard motorway driving, nothing much to write about really.

We arrived in Maranello at around 4, checked into the hotel, parked in the secure underground car park and scraped the underside of the front bumper again as it was a bit steep, arse!. I was a bit pissed off at myself for doing it, I could have been more careful but it was already pretty bad under there anyway, it’s been scraped on so many speed bumps that it’s hardly worth worrying about it anymore. If I get it fixed all I’ll end up doing is worrying about scratching it again which is an almost 100% certainty, it’s pretty low at the front.


View from our hotel balcony, the building on the left is where the Formula1 cars are made, Fiorano test track behind that

We then went to check out the Ferrari store, they’re all over the world but there’s nothing like being in the one across from the factory gates, I had to make a few purchases, 2 new keyrings, a small F430 model and a couple of T-Shirts.

After that we thought we’d take a wee drive round Maranello, it’s a lovely little place, very Italian(obviously) the whole place lives Ferrari, there’s a cavalino on every store, every restaraunt and there’s quite a few on this big factory right in the middle of town :)

It’s an awesome place to be, you can just feel the history, the legends that have walked through those factory gates, the cars that have driven out and let’s not forget that one day back in 2006 mine would have been driven out of those gates for the first time and had a blast into the hills with one of the test drivers, I’m sure it’s nice for him to be back at his birthplace for a few days :)


Outside the historic entrance

We stopped and had a nice pizza, had another drive around the other side of the factory where the new main gate and wind tunnel is located(on the way saw a new 458 Itialia and 599 GTO parked in the grounds) and we had a drive up into those hills, although I’m pretty sure the last time my car was on those roads he would have been driven a bit harder than I did.

Tomorrow is a bit of a rest day, we have nothing planned, the Factory tour isn’t until Tuesday morning so I think I’ll just hang out around the main gates see if I see any of the new stuff going out for test drives, might even follow some of the test drivers if I get a chance and just see exactly what they get up to with peoples new cars.

Oh yeah, typical, just watched on the news that in the UK they had the hottest day of the year so far, always the same when I’m away, oh well that’s all for today.

Ciao(that’s Italian by the way)

Day 2 – Amsterdam to Frankfurt

Ich Liebe Dich Autobahn!!! Translated I LOVE YOU AUTOBAHN, in fact Autobahn is a rubbish name to describe the motoring Nirvana, from here on in it shall be known as AWESOMEBahn!

After driving on a public highway with NO SPEED LIMIT WHATSOEVER it really made me realize how backward everyone else in the world(except Isle of Man) really is. When you’re on a derestricted highway everyone doesn’t blast along at 200 mph they move with the flow of traffic they drive to the conditions they drive at a speed suitable to their vehicle (in my case 153Mph), they manage to police themselves and the end result is a fast moving enjoyable drive.
Even when it was busy the traffic was still moving along at around 100mph, that’s amazing!
It’s kinda scary though, the first time you really put your foot down, the only reason we realized we had passed into Germany was that the little speed limit indicator on our sat nav had disappeared, a bit of discussion between Gill and I on ‘Are we in Germany?’ and our question was answered by a BMW coming past at a good 130Mph.

So this was it, Ferrari + AWESOMEBahn = Oooohhhh blooooddy heeellll jesus we’re doing 153 Mph on a public road and it’s legal! That was the highest speed we managed today, first time on the AWESOMEBahn didn’t really want to push it too much, wanted to ease in gently, not a bad effort though 153(sorry Brian, had to go at least a little bit faster than your record ; This was GPS verified, speedo was showing around 160) ) It was also amazing how effortless it was to get to 153, accelerating in 6th didn’t even need to drop down any, foot down and it just went, you could feel it being sucked into the ground with the full undertray and diffuser performing their aerodynamic duty, it was very stable, totally planted, amazing. Not much more I can say really other than this is definitely the way to drive.



Lane discipline is excellent, people overtake, they move back in, overtake, move back in, I suppose there’s an extra incentive to aid awareness and that’s by not paying attention you could be mounted by a Ferrari or, Beemer, or Merc doing well over 150!

I’m telling you, the problem with the UK is people going on autopilot, sitting in the outside or middle lane and just switching off, If you started firing misiles at them I’m sure they’d pay attention, this is pretty much the same thing.

Take heed UK, the Germans can do it, why can’t we!

We had a few fun encounters too, a lovely red Audi R8 V10 and I had a wee blast upto around 140, lots of people giving the thumbs up and the universal signal for give it the beans and generally just good fun all round. Well done Germany!

So we arrived in Frankfurt around 3pm, made pretty good time(not surprising) so had a chance to park up and go for a wander round town. Now parking was my next worry, first of all we asked where the underground car park was, the lady behind the desk replied ‘Zer are plenty oof spaces ootzide, you do not need ze undergund car park’ to which we replied we’d like to park there anyway, we then found in the underground car park you could rent a secure cage for your car for only 11 Euros, awesome I thought, back to the desk to ask and this time the guy behind the desk replied ‘It’z reely not required, eet eez very safe, do you hav Jewels in the car?’ I felt like just saying ‘Gime the key to the cage and STFU’ but I refrained and explained we’d just rather have that extra bit of security, if nobody can park next to you then you don't get door dings, simples!. I don’t know why he was really asking, in the other cages where an old Lambo Urraco, very nice, a Porsche Panamera, some old BMW thing and a Ferrari Mondial, I don’t think I was being unusual asking for the same level of security.


Ferrari in his box, safe and sound


Ferrari Mondial


Lamborghini Urraco

Franfurt is a really nice city, we had great weather and had a nice wander round town and some tasty German sausage, yum!


Sunset over Frankfurt

Tomorrow, we’re off to Maranello, taking my baby back to his birthplace.

Road trip day 1 - Glasgow to Newcastle

Well I just cannot believe it, we’re here already, we’re off on our road trip in the Ferrari!!! So what lies in store on day1, well 150 mile drive from Glasgow to Newcastle(wai aye man) to get the overnight Ferry to Amsterdam.

Pretty uneventful drive to be honest, left home at around 10:30 got to Newcastle around 1. Had to wait around a bit at the ferry terminal but it was a lovely day 25 degrees, yes my American friends, it was warm here! While waiting at the terminal a bunch of old(40 years +) Volvo’s arrived, they were doing a rally from Lands end to John O’Groats, had a nice chat to a couple of those guys, had a few offers of a car swap but had to politely decline



It’s a funny experience going places in a Ferrari, it’s amazing how a piece of red metal with wheels sparks real emotion in people, they’re happy to see it, it sometimes makes their day, it feels nice to make someone smile just because you have something that little bit different.

We even had a guy on a motorbike have a little blast with us, he just wanted to hear it, came up beside us and give the universal signal to give it the beans(it definitely wasn’t the other universal signal of shaking the coffee beans, that means a whole different thing entirely) so we gave it a wee blast and so did he, monster bike he was on though, he would definitely have had us on the straights but the laws of physics was on our side for the corners

One thing I was worried about was getting on the Ferry, I did a bit of research before hand, spoke to a few friends in the Ferrari owners club and asked on a few forums if anyone had any issues getting on or off, well I’m very glad to report getting on at least was a pain free experience, In fact the DFDS seaways crew member loading the cars was fantastic. He spotted me in the line, came over and singled us out, put us onto a lower deck right at the front with a tonne of space around, we ended up having some of the old Volvo’s park next to us so we knew we were in good company with car enthusiasts beside us.



The Ferry takes approx 15 hours to make the crossing, it’s pretty cool though, a wee adventure on something a bit different to the norm, it’s pretty big though, a number of bars and restaurants and even a 2 screen cinema on board, fancied a watch of clash of the titans that was playing but ended up having a wee nap instead.
The cabin was a bit small though, was expecting it to be anyway, only thing I would have liked was a telly, missed the last episode of Ashes to ashes, will now need to spend the next few days avoiding tweets from my friend Scott so I don’t ruin it and can watch it when I return.

That’s about it for day 1, the fun really begins tomorrow, German autobahn, ohhhh yeeeeeaaaahhhhh. Stay tuned.