Ferrari tradition continues down the same road
By Mike Kable in Rome
FERRARI, fresh from celebrating its 50th anniversary, has set a "more of the same" philosophy for the next 50 years.
In other words, it will continue its participation in Formula 1 racing as well as keeping a tight rein on its output of highly specialized sports and GT cars.
During a spectacular 10-day program for its 50th anniversary festivities, Andrea Antonnicola, of Ferrari's marketing division, told The Autmotive Post: "We will follow our traditions, for sure"
The festival started in Rome with parades of 200 cars spanning the past 50 years and climaxed with 3,000 Ferrari owners converging on Maranello in northern Italy last weekend.
Antonnicola is responsible for the Pacific region and the sale of racing and sports cars including F1 Ferraris in the United Kingdom and Far East markets.
"Racing came first for Ferrari and it is still our raison d'etre," he said.
"It would make no sense that a company like ours would spend so much money on racing if it wasn't in our roots.
"Ours is the only F1 team that is still left from the early 1950s and we want to be there for the next 50 years."
Antonnicola said Ferrari would spare no effort and expense to continue producing cars that stirred people's emotions.
"When you see, get into, or buy a Ferrari, you must have this emotion.
"Enzo Ferrari always used to say that the next car was always going to be the best one.
"This is still the company's mentality and it's what we work to achieve, constantly improving our cars, to make them the best in their particular category.
"If we can have the same success in the next half-century as we have had in the past 50 years, then Ferrari will be very successful when its 100th anniversary comes around."
According to Antonnicola, there will never be a small, price- leading Ferrari -- or a four-door family Ferrari.
"We will not follow the likes of Porsche and Mercedes-Benz with their respective Boxster and SLK roadsters.
"Actually, we're very happy that they are producing these cars, because it means we will have even more success in the top sections of the specialist market.
"While there will be no four-door cars in our future, we will always have a two plus two model, such as the 456."
Antonnicola said the biggest change at Ferrari in recent years as far as its road-going cars were concerned was its embrace of advanced technology.
"We've set ourselves a priority to be always abreast of the latest technology," he said.
"Our 550 Maranello for example, is the only car offering three levels of antiskid reduction (ASR) technology.
"We like to give our customers something exclusive. Often, the money spent on racing enables us to develop new solutions for Ferrari's road-going cars."
The ongoing technology will be manifested next via an ingenious new transmission for the popular 355 sports and coupe models that will feature the option of manual or automatic transmission selection.
Drivers will be able to select full automatic gear-changing by pulling a lever.
This innovation is scheduled for introduction at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September.
Ferrari is happy with its financial result for 1996, which was released recently and showed a 12 percent increase in turnover to US$600 million, from 1995.
"It was Ferrari's best-ever financial result," Antonnicola said, emphasizing that it reflected buoyant sales in the U.S., the company's biggest export market.
He said production had been restricted last year to 3,400 cars.
"We don't want to build more than this number," he said.
"Perhaps we will go up to 3,500 or so, if there are big sales increases in countries like China and India during the next 20 years.
"We have not started to sell cars in India yet, although this should happen in the next few years.
"There are other possibilities of potential new markets, such as in the Philippines, Korea and for sure, Indonesia."
The highlight of Ferrari's celebrations was a demonstration of racing and sports cars around a makeshift circuit at Rome's world famous Circus Maximus, where the charioteers of the Roman Empire last raced in the year 500.
It attracted an estimated crowd of 50,000, which gave an emotional welcome to Michael Schumacher and Eddie Irvine as they hurled their F1 Ferraris around the course, blipping their engines to the shrill scream of 16,000rpm.
Earlier, Ferrari owners from all around the world had driven their cars through Rome's best-known locations such as the Vatican City, the Colosseum, Piazza Navona, Piazza Venezia and Caracalla.
The three-day "invasion" of Rome ended when the owners drove their cars to Maranello on the roads used in the Mille Miglia classic.