In the streets of Maranello, the hometown of Ferrari, the roar of the
famed sports car is no longer the occasional bragging right of a proud new
owner. It’s a constant backdrop as a number of test-drive businesses give
would-be Schumachers the chance to rev up and peel out.
The howl of engines is disturbing residents’ tranquility —
including the afternoon siestas — and the risk of speeding cars is a safety
concern, say city officials, who have started cracking down on the businesses.
With 37 cars available for test drives in a city of 17,000, complaints have
been mounting.
“They are obviously big cylinder cars that are very
powerful, and they are circulating on the same streets with regular traffic,”
says Maranello Mayor Massimiliano Morini. “You can understand that this creates
a very big problem of cohabitation for those living nearby who understandably
want and have the right to rest.”
The test-drive businesses have been cashing in on Ferrari’s
global appeal by offering aficionados without the wealth to buy their own hot
wheels a high-powered spin “for the price of a dinner out,” as one business
owner put it. That translates to 80 euros (US$85) for a 10-minute drive in a
Ferrari F430 Spider. For a two-hour spin in a Ferrari 458 Speciale, the cheque goes up to 1,400 euros
(US$1,485). While such businesses exist in cities around the world, driving a
Ferrari around Maranello is an unrivaled experience for the true Ferrari fan.
So far, there have been no significant accidents in
Maranello, according to city officials, and the test-drive business owners say
the most damage has come from scraping wheels on curbs. All test drives are
accompanied by a trained race car driver.
That hasn’t lessened safety concerns, however. Maranello’s
police force conducted more than 450 traffic controls involving the super cars
in the first nine months of the year, with 305 fines issued over the last five
years, according to city statistics.
Maranello and neighbouring Fiorano have teamed up to tighten
rules limiting hours that the test drives can take place. They essentially cut
out a couple of hours in the early afternoon and ban companies from soliciting
customers near the gates of the Ferrari museum, which is visited by 300,000
people each year. To improve compliance, Maranello has imposed an eight-day
suspension after the third citation, which Morini says is a bigger deterrent
than the previous 500-euro fine. Business owners say the rules have cut off
oxygen to their enterprises.
“We are entrepreneurs … we are in a tourist town and I can’t
promote my business,” said Maja Corluka Valestri, owner of Pit Lane Red
Passion, adding that the economic damage from the new rules was already
evident. “We have lost 80 per cent of business.”
Having to turn away customers during what were peak business
hours has been particularly difficult.
“It’s like asking a restaurant to close between 1 p.m. and 2
p.m.,” Stefano Ravazzini, owner of Push-Start, which was the first to launch
the test-drive service six years ago. Having lost a court battle challenging
the rules as anti-business, company owners are evaluating the next step to save
their investments, which for the largest can include 10 Ferraris and facilities
such a souvenir shops and cafes.
The everyman enterprises are in many ways anathema to
Ferrari’s exclusive market position. The centrifugal push back into a
leather-clad seat as a Ferrari accelerates from zero to 100 km/h in just over 3
seconds is meant to be a thrill attainable only for those who can afford the
nearly 200,000-euro starting price – and even that is limited to just over
7,000 new cars a year.
It’s not entirely clear, however, that the businesses
actually harm Ferrari’s well-tended image, even as Ferrari CEO Sergio
Marchionne tries to turn the automaker into a luxury goods manufacturer in the
image of, say, Hermes or Armani, by tapping additional revenue with a
yet-undisclosed line of new products. Part of that process includes spinning off Ferrari from its mass-market
parent Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, expected in January accompanied by an
additional stock listing in Milan.
“In some ways, it almost highlights how special the true
Ferrari owners’ experience is,” said Robert Haigh, an executive with the
London-based Brand Finance asset value consultancy. A spokesman for Ferrari
declined to comment on the enterprises.
While the short-term test-drivers “will go away
empty-handed,” Ferrari owners get a VIP experience, including a factory tour,
atelier experience personalizing cars down to contrast stitching on the leather
seats and maybe even a few laps around the famed Fiorano Formula 1 test track.
“It sort of brings home that it is not just a personal pet
project of yours,” Haigh said. “You see what demand there is in the rest of the
world, and you get to have the real experience.”
source: http://driving.ca/ferrari/458/auto-news/news/why-people-in-maranello-are-sick-of-hearing-ferraris-howl
by Colleen Barry
http://www.fzrestoration.com
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