How could we top a visit to Ferrari?
Day two and we found ourselves in the middle of a small industrial park outside Modena visiting the most exclusive car maker – Pagani. Argentine by birth, Horatio Pagani has been interested in Italian cars since a boy, designing small models at the age of 10. Having worked for various big names in the field he founded his own company in the 90s and presented the Zonda in 1999. Since then he has produced a mere 130 cars, each one is beautifully crafted with love and care, using unique materials created by himself. From the small showroom showing the Zonda cinque (meaning 5 – as only 5 were produced) we were taken into the atelier and saw the small workforce paying meticulous attention to every detail. Pagani claims that Leonardo da Vinci was his inspiration and he admires the Renaissance attitude to fine art.
This afternoon we visited the Maserati factory. Here we were back to a production line with about 20 minutes for each station before the car moves on to the next stage. Maserati produces about 21 cars a day. The workers were much more laid back than Ferrari and the whole operation was much less slick than Ferrari. Our group enjoyed watching a team of inspectors deal with a misaliged door. They appreciated the checks and controls taken to ensure that the final model leaves the factory floor in perfect condition.
Tomorrow we’ll visit some car collections before moving onto Turin to the great designers of these elegant machines.
Our final visit of the day was a private car collection on the outskirts of Milan. The owner had told us not to expect much – a few cars in a garage and I’d asked him to have some water ready for our thirsty group. When we arrived we were blown away by the collection and the owner had laid on a party. He’d invited some key people in the car world and a beautiful reception with (more) food and prosecco. Yet again j had to be mother and drag them away from their fun!
