Happy Birthday, Ferrari

We were invited to Ferrari’s 70th birthday party at Fiorano, to ogle at some of the most beautiful and historic cars in the world and witness cars being auctioned for eye watering sums

IF NOT FOR FERRARI, MARANELLO wouldn’t be on anybody’s map. There’s no history to the city, no renaissance-era church, no medieval town square, none of the ridiculously beautiful architecture that’s dotted all over Italy. The town exists because of Ferrari – its sprawling factory with its 3000 employees designing and building road and race cars; the museum with a massive parking lot for the busloads of Tifosi; the official merchandise store, where you can spend the equivalent of an apartment in a decent part of Mumbai, on a watch; the tonnes and tonnes of stores selling unofficial merchandise, model cars and even joy rides in Ferraris. Ten minutes from the historic entrance of the Ferrari factory is Pista di Fiorano, the track where Michael Schumacher tested so extensively, making Ferrari so successful, that the teams without their own private racetracks (everybody!) eventually forced the test ban upon Formula 1. Today apartment blocks have cropped up so close to Fiorano that occupants complain

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