I won’t lie&#8230; writing any story on Ferrari is intimidating. Ferrari drivers don’t own a car, they find a passion. Their blood is not Springbok green – it is pure Maranello red.
They feel the spirit of Enzo Ferrari, the famed driver who founded the automaker and the Scuderia racing team, every time they slide behind the steering wheel.
Although red was the color originally assigned to all Italian Formula One (F1) cars by the International Automobile Federation, nearly half of all Ferrari’s sold today are that distinctive color.
What I admire most about the people of the Prancing Horse – an emblem which was handed down by the aristocratic family of a First World War flying ace – is that they hold their heads high despite dark times on the F1 circuits.
Just pass your eyes over these names&#8230; Alberto Ascari, Juan Manuel Fangio, Mike Hawthorn, Phil Hill, John Surtees, Niki Lauda, South Africa’s Jody Scheckter, Michael Schumacher and Kimi Räikkönen. They have won a record 15 drivers’ championships for the team.
Now, unless their luck has changed since writing this story, the fans are surviving on memories of the 2015 Singapore Grand Prix.
Ferrari chairman and newly appointed CEO Sergio Marchioness expected the Scuderia to start winning races some time back.
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The Ferrari boss said: “I’m very satisfied with both [Sebastian] Vettel and Raikkonen. The only thing that hasn’t worked well is luck.”
So, if the Scuderia aren’t exactly scorching the circuits, how is this reflecting on sales and profits?
Well, ironically, 2015 was their best year ever. Total sales are up 6% to 7,664 and profits up 9% to €290 million ($324 million). This year they’re gunning for 7,900 units, including supercars. Modest growth yes, but there just aren’t that many new Ferrari customers each year.
Sure, Lamborghini figures have spiraled but that’s mainly due to the modestly priced Ghibli. And remember Ferrari don’t see themselves as a car company. They are positioned as a luxury goods company. About half of Ferrari’s current assets consist of its brand value.
Hard to argue against when a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO is bought by American communications magnate Craig McCaw for $35 million! A 1957 Spider Scaglietti, which won the 1958 Cuba Grand Prix, was also snapped up at a Paris auction for $35 million.
Ferrari rings up approximately $1.5 billion in worldwide retail sales every year. The specialist shops stock clothing, watches, sunglasses, shoes, mobile phone covers… you name it. And the fans will pay top dollar for the Ferrari logo. Even a scale model of the Ferrari F14T fetches $5,400!
The brand is even more independent now after a complicated series of transactions, including an IPO and listing on the New York Stock Exchange, has established Ferrari N.V. separately to Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.
Closer to home, South African new vehicle sales have sunk to a seven-year low with an analyst calling the figures “horrible”.
So how is the supercar segment, Ferrari in particular, weathering the storm? Well, new models always provide a solid lifeboat and the replacements for the highly successful 458 Italia have been nicely timed.
There is nothing cosmetic about the new 488 lineup. Apart from breathtaking design inside and out, we are into the new generation of engines. It’s a blueprint for all the industry leaders&#8230; smaller turbocharged engines developing more power, using less fuel and coughing out less noxious gasses.
First out of the blocks was the 488 GTB coupé. As you might know, the GTB stands for Gran Turismo Berlinetta and the sales have certainly been grand.
Today, the pride of the showroom is the turbo-fitted open-top version, the Ferrari 488 Spider. The lightweight Retractable Hard Top (or RHT) hardly dents the heart-stopping performance. You will hit the 100 km/h mark in three seconds flat and clock 325 km/h on a good day.
We didn’t quite hit those figures on the test drive, but whistling topless along the N1 “concrete highway” with the back window lowered to hear the purring 3,902cc V8 turbo is not a bad way to spend a Saturday afternoon.
This is when you take your hat off to technology. The smaller engine develops around 20% more power than the previous 4.5-liter naturally aspirated V8. As Scuderia South Africa CEO Mervyn Eagles says, the 488 Spider has been designed to set new technological benchmarks for the sector.
“Following the success of the 488 GTB both locally and internationally, the 488 Spider promises to surpass the expectations of any open-top V8 sport car.”
The technophobes will tell you about the Variable Torque Management system guaranteeing progressive delivery in the higher gears. It is, very simply, smoother than silk – the very antithesis of the exhilarating but neck wrenching Alfa Romeo 4C. It is all translated through the remarkable 7-speed F1 dual-clutch transmission.
The interior is a perfect blend of functionality and understated style from the Blu Corsa livery, apparently to meld with the overhead sky, to the concise instrument panel and multi-media positioned on two wings straddling the main display. I can’t verify the improvements, but a former 458 owner tells me the controls and multi-media options have been incredibly simplified.
Then we come to that crucial element of supercars that will always be hotly debated – sound. And I’m not talking about the 12-speaker JBL professional sound system. This is where Ferrari get rather esoteric.
“In line with Ferrari tradition and drawing on the harmonics typical of Prancing Horse cars with this kind of architecture, this eight-cylinder has its own absolutely distinctive soundtrack, thanks to exhaust headers with longer, equal-length piping and the flat-plane crankshaft.”
“The sound was crafted to be seductive but never invasive when the top is dropped,” the brochure oozes.
Distinctive it may be, but possibly missing the rumbling roar of the normally aspirated engine.
Which raises the question – is the 488 Spider too perfect? It is ultra fluid and easier to drive with special dampers for comfort and a “Side Slip Angle Control system” to help non-professional drivers to reach the limit.
But will petrolheads find that it has lost some of the raw appeal of the Ferrari marque, despite the blistering performance?
Possibly. Yet Ferrari is not alone. The trend is to offer a machine that is as content to poodle to the corner café as it is to take on all comers on the racetrack. Although some of the throbbing adrenalin may have faded, the era of gearsticks and oil spills is over.
The Ferrari 488 Spider is the supercar you want to make it. All you need is a spare $407,000… and a good contact to get on the waiting list.

Can A Ferrari Be Too Perfect?

Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati. There is an exciting ring to those names, but that ring comes at a price.
And you can expect to forfeit a dowry of more than $200,000 to marry into the top-end of these Italian families.
But there is a classy cousin with style, performance and the badge that turns heads… coming in at around a third of the asking price – a shade over $80,000.
The Maserati Ghibli is offering Italian supercar style and status in the luxury executive car segment after an absence of nearly two decades.
Clearly in the sights of the new entry-level Maserati are the Mercedes Benz E-Class, BMW’s 5 Series, Audi’s A6, the Jaguar XF and a host of other sporty saloons which have a slightly leaner price tag.
If the name Ghibli seems familiar, it was originally a V8 Grand Tourer released in 1967 and then a four-seater coupe in 1992.
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It seems that Maserati, now nestling under the massive Fiat Chrysler empire, decided a few years ago to do something special for its 100th birthday and build a scaled-down Quattroporte limo for the moderately well heeled.
And, like the wind it is named after, the Ghibli has blown apart all the tired sales figures for the brand.
In automotive terms it doesn’t really make sense, especially in recent years of conservative global growth, and at times decline.
It’s hard to comprehend that Maserati sold a mere 6,200 units in 2012 and almost seven times that number last year – with the Ghibli clearly leading the charge for growth.
And that’s before the next major model release, the Levante luxury SUV arrives to cross swords with the Porsche Cayenne and Range Rover Sport.
Heady days for the assembly line at the new Giovanni Agnelli plant in Turin and also some extra shifts for Ferrari, in Modena, crafting the Maserati-designed engines.
It’s a belated tribute to the Maserati brothers, Alfieri, Bindo, Carlo, Mario, Ettore and Ernesto, who were all involved with automobiles from the beginning of the 20th century.
It was all about racing in the formative years. Then in 1926 the production of two-liter Grand Prix cars for Diatto was suspended and the first Maserati was engineered bearing the now famous marque.
When you see the Ghibli in the flesh you may want to give Marco Tencone, head of design since 2009, a pat on the back.
It may be called an entry level Maserati, but it lines up against the big guns on the showroom floor without any reflection of the smaller dent in your bank balance.
Its eye-catching, flowing lines which radiate from the iconic, but rather daunting, grille hold your breath all the way to the menacing exhausts without ending in a disappointing Panamera-like rear.
What I like about the interior is the classic simplicity. Essentialism rules in this design, where no controls are there for the sake of fashion, the dials are stark and clear and the multimedia screen and system is superbly logical.
But don’t mistake a lack of frills with a lack of exclusivity and craftsmanship.
“The fact is that, with Maserati, you bespoke your car. The combinations are endless and it’s not a luxury car unless you can personalize and tailor it for the specific customer,” says Rens Rademeyer, General Manager at Maserati Johannesburg.
“The focus is on the quality of workmanship and materials.”
To be honest, I was expecting a rather sedate drive in the Ghibli S. But the acceleration is rampant and at times it’s difficult not to wheel spin at the lights.
All the Ghibli models, including the ground-breaking diesel, are powered by V6 3-liter twin turbo engines. The five-second S gets that extra boost thanks to some fine engine mapping and components.
On the negative side, there was a perceptive turbo lag which seemed to be minimized in manual and the rather sturdy oversized paddles are a lot more fun to communicate directly with the eight-speed ZF transmission.
That’s possibly why the gear selector seemed a tad finicky and seemed to stray into manual if not closely monitored.
The ride is superbly smooth and the Ghibli glides over the plethora of city speed humps without the neck-jarring suspension of some competitors.
And, on a rather personal level, my ungainly two-meter frame felt ever-so snuggly cosseted on those painstakingly padded and stitched seats.
Even if you’re not behind the wheel of a Quattroporte, there is a distinct brand cachet. Without being too esoteric, beyond the nuts and bolts of manufacture, there is an element of prestige riding behind the trident badge. You notice it in the attention of a petrol pump attendant or even the nod of acknowledgement from a fellow motorist at the lights.
But here’s the rub. Even with projections of a ceiling of 75,000 models (across the range), Maserati will battle to keep up with the fast developing technology of the major German luxury trio.
To put it blatantly, you may look like a million dollars in your Ghibli but you will be missing many standard features of the mass produced rivals.
That is the trade-off.
“A lot of these so-called features are gimmicks,” says Rademeyer. “We are giving our customers a pure driving experience, we are not selling smartphones.”
Rademeyer extends the same personal service to the new showroom, in the plush Johannesburg suburb of Bryanston, where he pilots the Italian coffee machine to turn out a pretty mean cappuccino. All the staff have to train as baristas.
But maybe they should offer customers a Foster’s lager after hours. That’s because the franchise holders for Maserati in South Africa are now European Automotive Imports (EAI), who are aiming to build on their success with the brand in Australia.
“Our goal is to transform Maserati’s position in the South African market to offer a new benchmark for exclusivity and customer service,” says EAI Chief Operating Officer, Glen Sealey.
“We have been very successful in Australia and our appointment in South Africa is an outstanding vote of confidence and a clear acknowledgement that we have the people and expertise to succeed.”
What this means is that Maserati is no longer under the wing of Ferrari and is flying solo.
Maserati re-enters South Africa with its complete model offering of the Quattroporte, GranTurismo and GranCabrio ranges.
A Maserati dealership has just opened in Cape Town, on the foreshore near the International Convention Centre, and plans are underway to find a partner in Durban.
Perhaps the critical element of the expansion is to ensure that the resale values stabilize and servicing standards are up to scratch.
“Globally, the brand is ramping up all the dealer management and customer relationship systems,” says Rademeyer.
“But the systems are there to help us manage relationships with our customers, so we don’t depend on automation. But it helps us to manage the personal interaction with our customers. We have volume aspirations but will never be a brand-considered mass-produced [car].”
It’s a swaying tightrope that Maserati have to walk between the prestige of the trident badge and bidding for a bigger slice of the market segment.
As the Italians say to wish good luck: in bocca al lupo!

Italian Beauty Back In Africa

A shortage of cables was one of the gaps Salimo Abdula saw in the market in post-independence Mozambique and it made him one of the country’s richest men. Nearly thirty years later, he drives a white Jaguar, as well as a Ferrari, through the streets where he once rattled unnoticed.
Not bad for a man who grew up shooting snakes with his catapult in the bush near where he was born in Quelimane, in northern Mozambique on June 18, 1963. He remembers independence night on June 25 1975, with that warm, open, smile born of a small town.
“I remember people happy in the house; people saying we are now free. My mother was cooking and all of us went to the soccer stadium at midnight to see the raising of the new flag,” says Adbula.
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Independent Mozambique proved hard for Abdula. He spent his teenage years serving drinks and sandwiches at the cinema, where his father worked, and playing basketball in the evening; all to earn a crust for his younger brothers. In these tough early days, he tried his hand as an entrepreneur on the streets of Quelimane.
“I remember I had saved some money. A friend of mine wanted to sell dry fish to customers in another province. I had 30,000 meticals and he asked to borrow and pay me back. I am still waiting. This was my first lesson in life. I was too young.”
Harder times were ahead as the glow of independence faded. In 1977, the civil war broke out and in 1979 Abdula was called up to the army. Luckily for him, an injury saw him discharged and he went to study at a commercial school in Beira.
Abdula carried a lot on his young shoulders; he had to support eight people, as well as study. This led him into part time work in a lighting shop in Beria called A Illuminante. It taught Adbula the electrical supplies business. Study did not go so well, as the now provincial government wanted Abdula and his fellow students to opt for the new Marxist-Leninist economics. Abdula wasn’t so keen, so, in 1981, he looked south to Maputo for a new college.
“People would say to me, ‘If you go to Maputo you will get lost because they have more buildings than trees,’” says Abdula.
Getting there wasn’t easy in a country in the grip of civil war. Adbula spend days talking his way into  one of the last seats in a Russian Antonov military transport plane for a cold and noisy two hour flight to Maputo.
“I remember a Russian guy and a Mozambique guy going around asking people for money and putting it in their shirts. I had small money and held it tight. They said to me, its ok, it’s enough, you don’t need to pay. At take-off, the Mozambique guy said we are not going to Maputo but to Nacala for a military mission. I believed it, but thankfully we got to Maputo instead.”
On the ground, it was no easier. Abdula had to walk the streets to find Eduardo Mondlane University because he had no idea where it was.  At night, he climbed the stairs, to a friend’s 18th floor flat, to rest his head.
It took a week for Abdula to apply to the university, before officials sent him back to Beira, then from pillar-to-post back to Maputo where he found he was too late to enrol. It took piles of forms and persistence to get into Eduardo Mondlane Commercial Institute of Mozambique to study IT.
In the third and final year of study, Abdula got the fright of his life.
“People used to say once you have finished you have to go Russia to work for intelligence for the military. It was a rumor, but I was scared.”
Amid the fear Adbula took a phone call from a former colleague at the lighting shop in Beira.
“She told me, Salimo, the store is abandoned, the guys have fled to Portugal we have no management. We have 30 days and if no one takes over the government will auction it.”
Abdula was a mere 20-year-old basketball-playing student. He was being asked to save the jobs of 77 workers, who had not been paid for months, with the paltry coffers of a paralyzed company.
“I bought a ticket to Beria and flew on Friday and called the lady for a meeting. Then, I spoke to her colleagues; everyone was worried. I said to them, ‘I have no experience, I have no money—what should I do?’”
Abdula wrote a letter to the government to say he would take over the salaries and debt; the government agreed.
“The government wanted to get rid of the problem, I bought the problem&#8230; my friends said to me: ‘what are you doing are you crazy, you don’t know anything about running a company.’”
The debts ran into millions and Abdula signed and started to pay.
“Then I came back to the office, almost to cry. We had no equipment; we had one very old car, a Peugeot, that we had to push start.”
The only answer was swift income. The blessing of Beira was that it was the only place in Mozambique that made cables—for which, demand far exceeded supply.
Abdula had used his Maputo network to contact CFM, the government-run ports and railways and a big cable customer, to discuss supplying thousands of meters of cables. He bought enough copper to make 100,000 meters of cable and the business turned out to be an entrepreneur’s dream.
Customers in Maputo agreed to pay Abdula in advance; the factory in Beira wanted only 50% of the payment up front. It meant solid cash flow for Abdula, plus profits of 2,000%, as hotels, shops and offices couldn’t get enough of the scarce cables. He paid off his debts in two years with the help of leg work.
“I used to wrap the cables around myself and deliver them on a motorcycle in Maputo,” he laughs.
Expansion followed and in 1996 Abdula bought the cable factory for $500,000. Today, the building alone is worth $5 million.
In the same year, came another decision that was to transform his business; the decision to marry his wife Maria, a businesswoman to the core who acquired the nickname in Maputo business circles of Marechal—Portuguese for general.
“She is the iron lady,” says Abdula.
In 1997, the couple began building Intelec Holdings, 75% of which is owned by the cable-selling Electrosul and 25% by shareholders. It has a turnover of $170 million and is the 17th largest company in Mozambique.
Abdula also spent a term in parliament. He was elected in the country’s first elections in 1994, serving as member for his home town of Quelimane. He admits it helped him to network.
“He is quite a good lobbyist and likes to mix business with a bit of politics,” says Maputo-based journalist and publisher, Fernando Lima.
Abdula won’t say how much money he has, but says his net worth is healthy. His country’s economy is not.
“I believe doing business and the government working in the private sector has improved a lot. Bureaucracy is still there… Infrastructure is a problem, roads and electricity are improving, but we have a long way to go,” he says.
“I don’t think any government has the capacity to revert back to control. The private sector today has its own capacity to penetrate and dictate the rules of the economy. No African country can be an island. Mozambique is a good example; it shows growth of the economy of 7 and 8 percent because of the private sector. I am one of the fighters for the private sector to lead the economy.”
When Abdula celebrated his birthday this year it was at a lavish event in Maputo with his mother, eight brothers and 600 VIPS. It was a proud and emotional moment for the family that showed how far a small-town family had come.
“Luck we have to look for, the bad luck is always with us. That is my principle,” says Abdula.
Homespun philosophy from a man who rose from a rattling motorbike to a sleek Ferrari in just under 30 years.

Tag: Ferrari

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