the first ones to admit it… theoretically. But if you had to use your damn seat belt every time you got into your little Punto or your big Ferrari — if there are any such things in a Ferrari — well, it is like betting against yourself. It might invite disaster.
‘Italians are very superstitious and if you wear a seat belt it displays a lack of confidence in yourself. Seat belts are a real threat to public safety. They should be abolished.
‘If you put your seat belt on before you even start the engine, that means you are, at a minimum, a mediocre driver. You should not be behind the wheel. Your permit should be taken away.’
So here we have a country where people don’t obey rules that aren’t really enforced anyway, a country that is in love with machinery and, most of all, a country that was only recently introduced to the car. The love is still strong.
Elsewhere in the industrialised world, except Switzerland, the first flush of the relationship has gone, the mistress has become a wife and everyone’s more interested in its ability to cook, to sew and to be safe. I know my Mercedes is fat but she makes great hollandaise sauce. In Italy, on the other hand, they don’t give a damn if the windscreen wipers foul the steering wheel so long as it looks good. They want the car to be a pouting teenager, to be great in bed and with legs that go on for 26 miles.
They may drive a Fiat Punto but what they want is a Ferrari Testarossa. And until they get one, they will pretend the Punto has a 5.0-litre V12 with red camshaft covers.
In the world there are five serious supercar manufacturers and it should be no surprise to find that three are based in Italy — Ferrari, Lamborghini and Bugatti. What is odd is that they’re all made within fifteen miles of one town — Modena.
I’ve been there and it’s an ordinary, communist-run, peasanty sort of place which you might even call a bit shabby. The people have that Mediterranean look about them — ill-fitting suit trousers, belts fashioned from bailer twine, bad hats and even worse teeth. They sit around in medieval squares, chatting and smoking, only looking up to stare at a car. And there’s the difference.
I asked Giovanni Agnelli what makes the people of Modena tick and he said, ‘They have a mania for mechanics there. When a motorbike goes by, they can tell you what sort of engine it has. Ferrari is there. There’s a tractor factory there…’
A cruel one that, because Lamborghini started out as a tractor manufacturer and remains one of just two Italian car firms that Mr Agnelli doesn’t own. He already has Fiat, Ferrari, Lancia, Alfa Romeo, Maserati and Piaggio. But then he also controls around 25 per cent of all companies quoted on the Italian stock exchange, Juventus football club, the newspaper
On official business, Snr Agnelli has a Fiat Croma — a bicycle — but for pleasure I happen to know he has a Ferrari 456.
That makes him pretty special in Italy. When you drive a car like that over there, you are revered as a sort of cross between the Virgin Mary, Gilles Villeneuve and Roberto Baggio.
When we were over there making the BBC series
To see one of these cars in a lifetime is a special thing, but to find all three in a village is like coming home from work to find Halley’s Comet sitting by the fire. The Ferrari brought people out of their houses, the Bugatti got them cheering and the Lamborghini caused more than a few to faint.
In England, if you took a convoy like that through a village, the parish councillors would storm off down to the scout hut where plans would be drawn up for a bypass and 6-foot-high speed bumps on the High Street.
But I shall take to my grave the sight of a small boy in Italy. He couldn’t have been more than six and he was beside himself with excitement — he didn’t know whether to point or to tug at his mother’s dress and, if he did point, which car should he point at?
We stopped there for a drink and the town just ground to a halt. They came out of the school, out of the shops and out of their houses and they wanted to see the engines, the interiors, the suspension. And when we left, they wanted to see six black lines right down the main street.
Sadly though, because the Bugatti had four-wheel drive, they only got four.
That said, the Bugatti had disappeared from view first. It’s an interesting car this; mainly because someone, somewhere, sat down and said, ‘I know. Let’s give it twelve cylinders, sixty valves, four camshafts and two turbochargers.’ And then someone else must have said, ‘No, let’s not be homosexual about this. Let’s give it four turbos.’
It’s the fastest Italian car but it’s not the loudest — that accolade rests with the Diablo, which really is a 5.7- litre vibrator, a truck and a chest of drawers with a rocket motor. If you want a wild ride, this is where you queue.
But if you want the best car in the world, you must have the Ferrari, which is by far and away the nicest car I will ever drive. I love the way it looks, I love its engine and I love, most of all, everything it stands for. Ferrari, in my book, is a pagan god, a steel deity, sex on wheels. And that 355 represents automotive perfection.
Ordinarily, when the rear end of a car starts to slide, I undo my seat belt and get in the back, but in the 355, you just dial in a touch of opposite lock and then marvel as the car simply sorts itself out.
In an instant, you’re back on the power, willing that 40-valve, 3.5-litre V8 onwards, slamming the gear lever through its chromed gate and glancing occasionally at the simple white-on-black rev counter. This car has the delicacy of a quail’s egg dipped in celery salt and the power of a chicken chilli jalfrezi.
But that’s only half the story. I could derive as much pleasure from putting this car in my sitting room and just looking at it as I could from driving it every day. And never mind that it sounds better than Puccini and can outrun a Tornado jet.
That’s not it.
This is a car that was made by people who love cars, and it shows.
They don’t love cars in Germany or Japan or even America. Car manufacturers there strive to get each of the component parts right, to make the product fulfil the dictionary definition of a car as closely as is possible. But passion is not part of the equation.
You could probably drive a big BMW round a racetrack faster than a Ferrari 355 and the BMW engineers would be pleased. ‘Our car is faster than their car,’ they would say as they put on their checked jackets and stroked their pointy beards.
They would be so busy congratulating themselves that they’d miss the point. The man in the Bee Em will feel like he’s just had a bath, and the man in the Ferrari will feel like he’s just had sex with Claudia Schiffer and Elle Macpherson. At the same time.
That’s because a Ferrari has soul and a BMW does not. A BMW is an engineering masterpiece but a Ferrari is so much more than that.
Look at the fuel filler cap. It’s not simply a device to keep your petrol in the tank. It’s actually been styled. Then there’s the gear lever. It’s a work of art. Every component in a Ferrari has to do more than simply fulfil its function.
And it isn’t just Ferrari, either. Look at the 3-litre Alfa Romeo engine. This is fitted to their equivalent of a Ford Mondeo. If it weren’t for some pretty stupid taxation laws over there, this is the engine that would power Mr Fertiliser Salesman to his next meeting.
Now, elsewhere in the world, an engine is simply a collection of bits, nailed rather inelegantly together. I love cars but engines bore me even more than double chemistry did on a Saturday morning. Engines are simply there to make cars move. The end.
Er… not quite. I haven’t a clue what makes the Alfa V6 different but here is a power unit that’s pure opera. While every motor in the world sounds like someone singing in the bath, this is the full Pavarotti.
When the rev counter climbs past 5500 rpm, conversation in the cockpit just stops. People who would rather have their legs amputated than talk about cars will actually ask what on earth is under the bonnet — the London
