It costs about 14 euros, or about $15, per minute to drive a rented Lamborghini on the public roads of northern Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region. This feels especially exorbitant in a place where a couple of coins buys a glass of world-class wine. Even more grating, however, is that the experience is actually worth the money.
Stomping a supercar’s pedal to the metal is exhilarating at an undeniable, visceral level. The chaperone in the passenger seat during my own supercar test drive had to ask me to stop shouting with joy as I accelerated.
Twice.
I hadn’t even realized I was making a sound.
Lamborghini, Ferrari, Maserati and the high-end motorcycle brand Ducati are just the most recognizable names among the many, many manufacturers that come together in what is sometimes called Italy’s “Motor Valley.” Most are within an hour’s drive of Bologna, making it possible to construct a weekend-long holiday crash course (pun intended) in the niche — but global — world of supercars.
Most of the companies offer similar experiences — factory tours, driving simulators, vintage car expos and branded gift shops are almost ubiquitous. The factories in the Motor Valley resemble Amazon warehouses, at least at first glance. Sterile overhead lights illuminate mostly gray interiors in which S-shaped assembly lines weave across giant, open-floor work spaces. Small teams of workers in matching industrial uniforms focus on their assigned, often narrow tasks — affixing a door panel here, sealing a windshield there, constantly tightening and retightening various nuts and bolts. Whirring drills, cranking wrenches and the pounding of rubber mallets give everything a productive, almost musical soundtrack.
The Ferrari campus in Maranello feels the most like a theme park and, of all the supercar destinations in the area, seems to attract the widest range of tourist. The company-themed cafe next door serves as a waiting room for everyone from bored adolescents playing Pokémon Go to enthusiastic fans gushing over Formula 1 history. Most couples seem to consist of an automobile aficionado and a casually interested partner that the aficionado is trying to convert to Ferrari fandom, sometimes even with success.
Ferrari certainly possesses a particular romance. It is, after all, the only Italian luxury car manufacturer still racing at the Formula 1 level. Ferrari also currently operates as an independent company, whereas Lamborghini, Maserati and Ducati are all subsidiaries of non-Italian corporations. Lastly, the colorful life of the founder Enzo Ferrari is intriguing enough to have been depicted in multiple Hollywood films in the last decade alone.
But visitors do not actually enter a factory while on the Ferrari “factory tour.” Instead, they are driven around the company campus in a shuttle bus while a guide describes what’s going on in the various, mostly nondescript buildings.
Lamborghini’s factory tour offers the most well-rounded experience. The cars vary in color from matte black to mac-and-cheese orange to highlighter yellow and look like spaceships. Supercars-to-be, atop automated, GPS-navigated, robot-like vehicles, crawl between workstations that are hives of employee activity.
Lamborghini’s factory also benefits from its location across the street from Bull Bar, an otherwise anonymous cafe where the company’s employees often stop for an espresso and, in my limited experience, are quite happy to chat with curious visitors.
Maserati offers the most comprehensive factory tour at about 90 minutes. One standout benefit of the extra time is a visit to Maserati’s engine testing lab. In a room there, separated from the rest of the vehicle (as well as the engineers testing them), supercar engines are pushed to their limits by computer programs designed to replicate extreme driving conditions. Isolated in their testing rooms, the engines are connected to enough tubes and wires to give the proceedings a sci-fi air.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Ducati factory is the smallest of the bunch. Tight and less well-lit, the motorcycle manufacturer’s cramped quarters nevertheless allow visitors to examine the various construction stages up close. The same robot-like vehicles seen in the Lamborghini factory are present here (Lamborghini and Ducati are both subsidiaries of the Volkswagen Group).
In addition to factory visits, each company also offers public-facing exhibitions that exist somewhere at the intersection of museum and showroom. Ferrari’s lackluster factory experience is offset by its top-notch museums. Everything is organized chronologically and is well curated — the Maranello museum’s collection of Formula 1 racecars, in particular, is peerless among the museums visited. (Ferrari operates a second, smaller museum in Modena focused on its founder Enzo Ferrari).
The other two car companies’ exhibitions veer more toward “showroom.” Lamborghini’s interesting-enough collection of classic models is supplemented by an engaging array of company-themed artworks donated by Lamborghini dealers around the world. The Baku dealership, for example, has sent an Azerbaijani carpet featuring the company’s bull logo.
Like its Ferrari counterpart, the Ducati museum is well organized and features numerous racing bikes from throughout the history of MotoGP (the motorcycle equivalent of Formula 1) and individual motorcycles of historic interest, such as the aerodynamic yet fragile-seeming Ducati Siluro that set 46 world speed records in a single day in 1956. The museum lets visitors sit on some of the motorcycles and have their pictures taken. Children seem especially appreciative of this touch — every one of them took the opportunity to twist the display bikes’ throttles while emulating the sounds of a revving engine.
In fact, young children seem to love auto showrooms and museums across the board. As it turns out, “Hey Mom, look at this car!” is easily understood across language barriers.
Supercars, of course, raise ethical dilemmas simply by existing, and touring factories that produce the gas-guzzling machines in the age of climate change can feel out of touch. (A relevant aside: all the manufacturers are at some stage of developing electric vehicles.)
Even more conspicuous is the level of ostentatious wealth fundamental to the supercar industry’s survival, since the cars sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Prospective customers wearing watches that could pay off an entire family’s student loans can be spotted with sales staff as their minders. Spending time ogling the toys favored by the ultrawealthy seems — well, a bit gross. At least at first.
The cars do represent a pinnacle of human achievement in a specific field and can be appreciated purely for their beauty and power. For better or worse, this appreciation is best achieved behind the wheel. Several outfitters offer supercar-driving experiences, although many cost several hundred (or even thousand) dollars. Fortunately, lower cost options are available.
In addition to top notch espresso, Bull Bar houses a supercar rental service offering 10-minute test drives and, as it turns out, 600 seconds is enough time to convert a solely intellectual appreciation of supercars into gut-level affection.
Even when just puttering along in the village around the Lamborghini factory, something feels different. You’re sitting very low. Everything is alien, from the steering wheel that looks like a video game controller to the flashy dashboard display.
Inching slowly around the village for the ride’s first couple of minutes can feel like you’ve been conned into paying €14 per minute to drive a golf cart. Then you hit the arrow-straight, two-lane highway leading out of town and the guide in the passenger seat says, “OK, now you can go fast.”
Driving a supercar (in my case, a Lamborghini Huracan Spyder) is a multisensory experience. A split second before your innards are compressed by the increased G-force of acceleration, your ears are flooded by the sound of the car’s roaring V-10 engine. It is a phenomenal, snarling noise.
The signs along the road (which, it’s worth reiterating, is a public road, complete with oncoming traffic) pass at an increasing rate, heightening the sense of high speed. And just when you think you’ve gotten what you’ve paid for, the guide says, “You can go faster if you want.” After an incredulous confirmation, you then stomp the pedal with all your body weight. The signs pass faster, the oncoming traffic is blurrier, and the engine thunders even more angrily.
“OK, and start to slow down now,” you’re instructed, in the bored tone one might associate with receiving IT help at the office. A quick glance at the passenger seat confirms that this is just another blasé day for your guide. You, however, are adrenalized. Hyper-adrenalized, even — yet another speeding session on the way back to the village only increases this feeling.
A ticket to either Ferrari museum allows you to drive a car for 15 minutes on the Autodromo di Modena racetrack for just €35. During its heyday, the Autodromo not only hosted multiple Formula 1 races, but it also acted as a test track for Ferrari and Maserati. The original track has been closed for decades, but it is still worth taking the new Autodromo up on its offer.
You have to bring your own car — in my case, a cheapest-you-can-rent 100 horsepower hatchback (for comparison, the Lamborghini I drove wields 640 horsepower). What you lose in power, however, you make up for in freedom. I was the only driver present on the foggy morning I took my turn and, after a remarkably brief safety orientation, I had the track to myself.
Despite accelerating at pitifully slow rates compared to the Lamborghini a day earlier, the will-the-car-flip-over turns and hyperfocus on coaxing every extra millisecond out of each lap nearly matched the rush of driving a supercar.
Did I shout?
I don’t know.
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