Before I make this blog post, let me make a slight digression: internet has been so bad for me lately that I, and nearly everyone on this trip, has torn at least some part of their hair out and have already started the process of pre-mature balding. Don’t even ask me how Chris has been able to update the blog, I’m pretty sure he manifests internet out of thin air. Whenever we go to a hotel, us Americans like to do this thing that I call ‘hugging the router’. This, of course, sounds harmless at first, until the whole internet crashes in the entire hotel (sorry Naples). Anyway, on to what we did today!

 

We first got onto a bus ride that, by my standards, was driven by the best driver of all of Europe. If I stuck my hand out of my window as we passed the semi-trucks on the road, I could have easily taken whatever the other driver was eating right out of their mouth. Roads are very small, and I’ve never been so exhilarated riding a bus, it was like being at ValleyFair or Six Flags on a rollercoaster that you’ve never been on; dips and turns coming out of nowhere and you feel like you’re going to collide with an upcoming pole. Except this wasn’t a rollercoaster and we weren’t almost hitting poles, we were almost giving new paint jobs to trucks.

Anyway, my inner engineer in me was so giddy with excitement that I made simliar noises to what I can only imagine a elementary school kid makes when he/she gets what they want for Christmas. As we pulled up to the showroom for Maserati, I hopped and skipped my way to the front door, to be greeted by very well dressed Italians who were more than happy to show me cars that I will probably never own.

So here we are, in the show room! The show room contained four really cool vehicles, along with some weird off the wall paraphenelia that you probably wouldn’t guess would be in a show room. Such items consist of: Maserati headphones, Maserati belts, Maserati watches, Maserati shoes, and my favorite, the Maserati 400 Euro fountain pen. This is also where we would learn the history of Maserati and how it came to be today! After the show room, we headed to the assembly factory.

 

The factory produces only two models of cars: the Ghibli and the GranCabrio. Technically, this was the smaller of the two plants that Maserati actually has, but it was still a very large facility. Unfortunately we couldn’t take any pictures, but that isn’t much different than me taking the photos and not being able to upload them at all. But what we did see was really cool! We saw, basically, the beginning of the main chassis coming into the factory, the drive-train installation, electronic installation, and the final testing of the vehicles to make sure they are actually road worthy. It was especially awesome seeing so many Maserati cars driving around as well, because you knew exactly when one was coming down the road due to the sheer symphony that the car was playing with its engine (and to be honest, I feel like Mozart and Beethoven really have some competition). It literally stopped our tour guides from giving us tours so we could just stop and listen. Ferrari, who owns Maserati, really takes pride with what their vehicle actually sounds like, so this isn’t too surprise that the noise was able to halt 20+ engineers in their path.

 

As the tour came to an end, we all loaded our ways back onto the bus (slightly less exhilarating this time) and made our way over to the Lamborghini headquarters. A few of us actually got to drove Lamborghinis! I know, I know, that sounds really boring, but they looked like they had a blast and I only sort of envy them forever. After our stop at Lamborghini, we made our way to what was probably our largest lunch that we’ve had yet.

Unfortunately I sort of dozed off, so I don’t really know how we got there, but what I do know is that it was really delicious! The restaurant that we were at was actually a very special restaurant as well. It belonged to an organization that enables disabled people to be integrated into society better; through jobs, stipends, and education, they help integrate those who are disabled into society, which was a very cool thing to be in the middle of. The way this is possible is through the proceeds in which the organization gets money through. This includes: those who eat at the organization (us), the works that the disabled make and sell, and through the Italian government. It really was a cool little spot that served us great, and I really do mean great, food. The area that we were a part of is where lasagna originated from, and our courses consisted of: lasagna (go figure), some really different noodles that I’ve never seen before mixed with a really delicious combination of spices and pork, some of the best diced potatoes I’ve had here, fried meat of some kind (I’m really no food expert), and tiramisu to end it all!

 

Now after gorging ourselves into oblivion, we were off to Ducati next! If you have never heard of Ducati before, they are basically the sport bike brand in Europe. They win competitions, like a lot of them, and they take extreme pride in their bikes and in their drivers. They, however, didn’t have a showroom in the beginning of the tour like Maserati, but a really awesome museum afterward of all of the things that they have won ever (which is quite a lot, seriously).

 

Though Ducati makes a wide variety of sport bikes, which are definitely smaller than Maserati cars, their factory was actually significantly larger than Maserati’s. It also has a different demeanor as well: the workers looked intense, and seemed full with passion on what they were doing. There was also another huge key difference between the two factories too, and that was that there were significantly more women working in the factory. At Maserati, I don’t think I saw even one woman in the factory, where at Ducati, as our tour guide said, over 30% of the workers in the factory are women, which was really awesome to see!

 

Ducati, though known for their SuperBike and GP success sells a lot of crossover bikes as well. The way I would describe them is sort of hybrids between a lot of bikes, something that you cannot do with many cars. It’s pretty hard to make a super car like a Lamborghini also perform similar things as a SUV or pickup truck, but Ducati can make bikes that can be a roadster/cruiser/streetbike mixture. This is all done through the mechanics of the bike, along with electonic settings that the driver of the bike can tweek in order to fit to their personal needs. This is really the pull in most of Ducati’s sales, because they sell more of these ‘hybrid’ bikes than their street bike or sport bike models.

The museum that we visited afterward was obviously pretty self-absorbed, for Ducati’s sake. In their museum they had about 30+ bikes that had all won at least one race or one large event of some sort. The craziest part of this museum is to actually see Ducati’s roots, which, before World War 2, was in the market of electronic shaving apparatuses. It was amazing to see their timeline, in which their museum was built in a literal circle around, with bikes lined up on almost every year that was marked on the wall because they won at least one thing in said year. It’s truly merit to them how great engineering and a great driver can really pull together and make a company start from selling electronic racers to one that is one of the, if not the, staple in the motorcycle world.

 

So today was a busy day, and tomorrow will be just as busy as well! I’m sure Chris will have lots of things to say.

 

Also, this computer doesn’t have spell check so please don’t get chastise me if I spelled something wrong!

 

– Alex Manning