It costs about 14 euros, or about $ 15, per minute to drive a Lamborghini rented on the public streets of the Emilia-Romagna area of northern Italy. This feels particularly excessive in a place where some coins buy a glass of world -class wine. Even more rubbing, however, is that the experience is really worth the money.
The pedal of a supercar in the metal is exciting at an undeniable, visceral level. The companion in the front passenger seat during my own supercar test had to ask me to stop shouting with joy as I accelerate.
Twice.
I hadn’t even realized that I made a sound.
Lamborghini, Ferrari, Maserati and the High-End Ducati motorcycle brand are just the most recognizable names among the many, many manufacturers who come across what is sometimes called “Motor Valley” in Italy. Most are in an hour in Bologna’s car, making it possible to build a weekend holiday crash course in the specialized-but worldwide supercars.
Most of the companies offer similar experiences – factory tours, driving simulators, car vintage exhibitions and branded gift shops are almost ubiquitous. The factories in the car valley look like Amazon warehouses, at least at first glance. The sterile lights are mainly lightly illuminated interiors, in which S -shaped assembly lines weave in gigantic, open workplaces. Small groups of workers matching industrial uniforms focus on their specified, often close duties – placing a door frame here, sealing a windshield there, constantly tightening and holding various nuts and bolts. Injuries, keys and hits of rubber give everything a productive, almost musical soundtrack.
The Ferrari Campus in Maranello feels the most theme park and, from all supercar destinations in the area, seems to attract the wider range of tourist. The door -to -door cafe serves as a waiting room for all of the bored teenagers who play Pokémon go to enthusiastic fans who burst the story of Formula 1. Most couples seem to consist of an automatic Lacro and a short -lived partner.
Ferrari definitely has a particular romance. It is, in the end, the only Italian luxury car manufacturer still competing at Formula 1. Ferrari operates today as an independent company, while Lamborghini, Maserati and Ducati are all subsidiaries of non -Italian companies. Finally, the colorful life of founder Enzo Ferrari is interesting enough to be portrayed in many Hollywood films in the last decade only.
But visitors do not actually enter a factory while in the Ferrari “Factory Tour”. Instead, they are driving around the company campus on a bus, while a driver describes what is happening in the various, mainly without buildings.
Lamborghini’s factory tour offers the most rounded experience. Cars vary in color from matte black to Mac-and-Cheese Orange to highlighter yellow and look like spaceships. Supercars-to-be, at the top of automated, GPS-like-like vehicles, detect between employees’ workplaces.
The Lamborghini plant also benefits from its position across the Bull Bar, an otherwise anonymous café where company employees often stop for an espresso and, with my limited experience, are very happy to chat with strange visitors.
Maserati offers the most complete factory tour in about 90 minutes. A distinctive advantage of the extra time is a visit to Maserati’s engine test laboratory. In a room there, separated from the rest of the vehicle (as well as the engineers who test them), the supercar engines are pressed on their limits by computer programs designed to reproduce extreme driving conditions. Isolated in their test rooms, the engines are connected to several pipes and cables to give the process a sci-fi air.
It may not be surprising that the Ducati plant is the smallest of the bunch. Tight and less enlightened, the narrow squares of the motorcycle manufacturer allow visitors to examine the various stages of construction nearby. The same vehicles that look like robots observed at the Lamborghini plant are present here (Lamborghini and Ducati are both subsidiaries of the Volkswagen team).
In addition to visits to the factory, each company also offers exhibitions that are located somewhere at the intersection of the Museum and Exhibition. Ferrari’s lack of factory experience is offset by the top museums. Everything is organized chronologically and is well curated – the Maranello Museum’s collection from Formula 1 Racecars, in particular, is reckless among the museums they visited. (Ferrari takes advantage of a second, smaller museum in Modena, which focuses on Enzo Ferrari’s founder).
The other reports of the two car companies are more towards “Showroom”. The interesting collection of classic Lamborghini models is complemented by a fascinating series of artwork on the company donated by Lamborghini representatives around the world. The Baku delegation, for example, sent an Azerbaijani carpet with the company’s logo.
Like Ferrari’s counterpart, the Ducati Museum is well organized and features numerous racing bikes from all over the MotoGP history (the Formula 1 motorcycle equivalent) and the individual motorcycles of historical interest, such as aerodynamic and fragmented Ducati Only day in 1956. Their photos. Children seem particularly grateful for this touch – each of them took the opportunity to turn the headlines on the screen, while simulating the sounds of an engine.
In fact, young children seem to love exhibitions and museums throughout the boat. As it turns out, “Hi mom, look at this car!” It is easily understood in linguistic obstacles.
Supercars, of course, increase the moral dilemmas simply from the existing ones, and the plant tour that produces gas machines that lead to the age of climate change can feel out of contact. (A Related Distance: All Manufacturers are at some stage of electric vehicles.)
Even more apparent is the level of flamboyant wealth fundamental to the survival of the Supercar industry, as cars sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Candidate customers wearing watches that could repay the student loans of the whole family can be detected with sales personnel as their inventives. The time spending the games favored by Ultrawealthy looks – good, a bit gross. At least at first.
Cars represent a culmination of human achievement in a particular field and can be appreciated exclusively for their beauty and power. For better or worse, this estimate is best achieved behind the steering wheel. Many outfitters offer supercar driving experiences, though many cost several hundred (or even thousands) dollars. Fortunately, lower cost options are available.
In addition to Top Notch Espresso, the Bull Bar houses a supercar rental service offering 10 minutes and, as it turns out, 600 seconds is enough time to turn a solely intellectual assessment of supercars into intestinal love.
Even when it is simply confused in the village around the Lamborghini plant, something feels different. You sit very low. Everything is foreigners, from the steering wheel that looks like a video game controller on the fancy dashboard screen.
Flying slowly around the village for the first two minutes of the route may feel as if you have paid to pay € 14 per minute to drive a golf basket. Then you hit the highway with a dynamic, two lanes leading outside the city and the driver in the front passenger seat says: “Okay, now you can go quickly.”
Driving a supercar (in my case, a Lamborghini Huracan Spyder) is a multi -sensory experience. A second second before your spirals are compressed by the increased G-Force of acceleration, your ears are flooded with the car’s V-10 engine. It is a phenomenal, noisy noise.
The signs along the road (which is worth repeating, is a public road, complete with traffic) passes at an increasing rate, increasing the sense of high speed. And once you think you’ve got what you have paid, the driver says, “You can go faster if you want.” After an incredible confirmation, then hit the pedal with all the weight of your body. The signs pass faster, the forthcoming circulation is more blessed and the engine bombers are even more angry.
“Okay, and start slowing now,” you have taught, with the boring tone one can be associated with assistance in the office. A quick look at the front passenger seat confirms that this is another day blasé for your driver. You, however, are weak. The over-revalled, even-even-another speed meeting on the road back to the village, only increases that feeling.
A ticket either at the Ferrari Museum allows you to drive a car for 15 minutes at Autodromo Di Modena Racetrack for just € 35. During its acne, Autodromo not only hosted multiple Formula 1 breeds, but also acted as a test path for Ferrari and Maserati. The original track has been closed for decades, but it’s worth taking the new Autodromo on its offer.
You have to bring your own car-in my case, a cheaper-you can give 100 horsepower hatchbacks (for comparison, Lamborghini drove 640 hp). What you lose in power, however, you compensate for freedom. I was the only driver who was present at the foggy breakfast I took my turn and, after an extremely short security orientation, I had the track on myself.
Despite acceleration of sad slow pace compared to Lamborghini a day earlier, Will-Car-Flip turns and over-spreading every additional millimeter of seconds from each round almost match the rush of driving a supercar.
Yell;
I don’t know.
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