George F.
Yelp
I was visiting the area on business and had the opportunity to spend the weekend in the area around Bologna.
If I were truly blessed, the museum displays would have stopped at 1982, at the demise of carbureted Ferraris. To me, the original 308 GTB was the last truly exciting Ferrari - Refinements and modernizations after that sort of replaced the passion of Enzo with technology and gadgetry.
I took the ticket for the two museums: the Modena museum at the Ferrari home - road cars, and the Maranello museum of racing cars near the factory. Both can be done in a day - I did it on a Saturday.
A light lunch at the cantina got me started. Just a sandwich and soft drink, but my company expense report had a Ferrari receipt, so that was something!
So into the museum. A man met me at the doorway and cautioned me not to touch. I would have been more likely to jump in and try to start a few, but I promised to behave myself.
The first thing to catch my eye was a midnight blue 166 - essentially the first of Ferrari's road cars. The emotion of seeing that little jewel was overwhelming. Just imagining the beautiful noise of that 2-litre V-12 and roaring around a mountain road got me going. Not overly restored - a little patina made it perfect. The tiny little exhaust pipe was a reminder of things that used to be acceptable in performance cars.
Then a pair of green beauties: a 195 and 342 America - my least favorite thing about Ferraris is that way too many of them are red. The 2-tone green/silver on both of these was incredible!
Newer models came as I moved down the line. As I rounded the corner at the bottom of the first ramp (another green one - a 275 GTB) and I came to the silver Daytona Spider.
The rest of the collection were mostly newer and no quite as exciting. However, in the engine room (the old workshop), there was another jewel - a medium blue 206 GT Dino.
Lots of history - but there could have been more history and less in the new-car department. I guess one of the perils of a car company that's still in business is that they're pushing new models. It would have been amazing to have a complete collection of all models through the 70s on display somewhere - after that, the art started to go away from the cars. I'm a bit sentimental about that sort of thing.
The Maranello museum, later in the day, was full of the racing history of Ferrari. From the pre-war Fiats and Alfa Romeos raced by Enzo and Scuderia Ferrari before the marque was established, through the latest F-1 offering. The cars, the drivers, the history. Very impressive.
I met an Italian fellow in the parking lot with a nice white Alfa Spider, much like the one that I own. He didn't speak English and I don't know much Italian - but I showed him a photo of my car, and we smiled, shook hands, and understood each other perfectly!
It was a good day!