Sex Sells: Ferrari

Unfortunately I could not write anything on my blog on Friday due to 12 hours of travel from UK to Turkey. Adverse effects of low cost airlines :)

Today I found a reason to buy an iPhone! I am sure that you will agree with me on this. Today my friend found a Ferrari application on iTunes for iPhone. It is not a driving simulation or to create your own Ferrari or race for less fuel. This application is bringing the pure pleasure of Ferrari!

You can drive the Ferrari you wish. You won’t be driving around a circuit or in a road. You will be seeing only rev meter and speedometer and real Ferrari sound. I am not kidding, there six Ferrari models are available (458, F430 Scuderia, F430 Cabrio, 612, 599 and California). All these each models has its unique instrument panel and you can speed up either with in manual mode or in automatic mode. You can rev up to limiter and feel the real Ferrari pleasure.

Unlike any car game, it is not very easy to see the maximum speed. You have to push really hard to see. Especially with 458, you can see 325kph but you should know how to push the gas pedal! And each model is offering its own engine sound, that’s really unbelievable, I am sure that Ferrari spent a lot of time to develop this application with appropriate engine sounds.

And also you can test your ability to differentiate engine noise! You really don’t need to have a degree on music, you need the passion! Also there is a cheating function or a small bug. During the test, if you hold the gap between car models times is not counting!

This is the best iPhone application I have ever tried. I hope that they will be offering higher image quality but even this is enough to push adrenaline into your blood :)

Art of automotive: Ferrari 599 GTO

Probably last six months you might heard this song We No Speak Americano, most probably in everywhere. This old Italian song was covered by Australian group called Yolanda Be Cool and became very popular in short time period. Actually I am not very good song review but I do understand one thing, if it is Made in Italy, everyone listens to it.

While I was searching this song on YouTube I found the original version which was released in 1958 by Renato Carosone. And the original name was Tu vuò fà l'americano (You want to be American). As I found out that this song was Renato’s one of the most popular song and we understand this by finding its video clip very easily in 2010!

Of course if I speak about Italy, I cannot ignore the Ferrari. It is like Italian songs, it never lose its passion and soul even though the many years have passed over. As Tu vuò fà l'americano’s new cover was released, Ferrari also released a new GTO. It might not sound something very special for many people, especially if you were born after 1990s it won’t mean anything to you. But the GTO is the Ferrari’s Tu vuò fà l'americano.

GTO name was only used three times in Ferrari’s history. First one was the 250 GTO (1962), second one was 288 GTO (1984) and the third one is the 599 GTO (Today). GTO means one thing, this car is a classic from the production and you cannot own one, you just look after for the next owner! This is a very classic sentence but that’s truth, their owners disappear but GTOs keep living. I think GTOs can be explained with one sentence, Art of Automotive. All of these GTOs are state of art car for their era, honestly they are the state of art for automotive industry. Forget the VW powered Veyron or Zonda with Mercedes AMG engine! Ferrari 599 GTO is something which cannot be expressed with words.

I still remember the my childhood and playing with small Ferrari 288 GTO, it was an excellent, beautiful, powerful. You can find anything you need from a supercar but GTOs are not supercars, they are the definition of supercar! Ferrari 599 GTO is not that popular on media and it is not on Guinness Record book for the fastest something. But who cares? It is only produced 599 and they are all finished!

Most probably their owner’s will not drive that much, may be they will never drive them. 599 GTOs will be kept like a paint on your wall. You cannot find a mistake in a GTO, everything was designed for one purpose. For speed but not like Veyron’s air plane style of speeding, this speeding is an art from Ferrari. 599 GTO is one of the fastest Ferrari on planet right now, in many circuits it is nearly impossible to beat this car even if you thousands of horsepower. But the real thing is, we might see one in our life and we never forget that moment.

Ferrari GTOs are the only car which can be placed in Uffizi Gallery!

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Ferrari

Renault's Hip Hop Bag

Pushing the limits of design, in terms of creativity sometimes cause terrible products. In terms of design, Renault is one of the very well respect company for concept cars and terrible at transferring to production. I don’t know how they manage to destroy a concept car in manufacturing process but it should be thought in operations management lecture as a case.

Renault Wind Roadster is a very good example for ugly Renault design. Actually the concept car version was also ugly. Anyway, I never noticed this car on advertisements. There were many in everywhere but the car was looking so weird and it never caught my attention. However it reminded me something very similar to this, Louis Vuitton Géronimos hip bag. This hip bag has the same characteristics as the Wind Roadster, looks weird and don’t know what to do with it. I have no idea how to use this bag for in men fashion, this product is present under “men” section not “women”.

Wind Roadster shares one more interesting with Ferrari 575 Superamerica. They both share the 180 degree turnable hard top. You just push a button and top of the car moves to top of the boot. In Ferrari, there was not cover and when you want to close your top, you will have the bird poo inside your side. Hopefully Renault did place a cover to prevent this unpleasant experience. Still Wind Roadster is ugly and probably it will disappear after end of its life-cycle.

A detailed explanation for the problem of German Cars

For very long time I was trying understand what is wrong with German cars. I didn’t make mistake while writing, German cars. There is always something missing with them, I could not understand but German cars never have the same taste with Italian cars. Of course, I am not licking cars to identify their differences. I am pretty sure that all German cars would taste the same :)

And recently I found the problem with German cars. The huge problem which irritates me for very long and irritates many other people, I am using sales figures of Italian cars as a proof! German cars are offering everything; perfection, design (not all of them), efficient, luxury, perfect, gray, very gray, light gray, very dark gray and this goes forever. Germans cars are doing what you told them to do! Actually if a German car goes wrong, it terribly goes wrong. This happened in 2003-2004 with Mercedes E Class, electronic brake system and electronic control modules of C Class. Anyway, they don’t cause trouble anymore. The main thing is German cars are doing what they are supposed to do and they do not questionize. They just are doing it!

A German car always handles well, the automatic screen wipers always works with the same amount of rain, engine always makes the same sound, all the parts inside the car have the same millimetric distance within each other. This combination of perfection obsession is not matching with human being because we are not perfect and we want things different. I think the best explanation for German cars is they are like trains. They are doing what they are supposed to do, trains cannot change travel anywhere else than railway and they always follow a route.

The Italian cars are like pizza, each pizza is a unique dish. It is nearly impossible to have the same pizza, even if you manage to have the same one you cannot eat in the same way. All the mozzarella cheese will try to go somewhere else, you will try to make some weird moves to eat the slice and some vegetables will fell on your trousers while you are trying to clean your trousers, your elbow will hit to pizza. Basically each time you try to eat an Italian food, you will have a new adventure like in Italian cars. Each Italian car is totally unique, I don’t know how they manage to do it but they are excellent at producing each car unique. There is no identical twin of a Ferrari 458 or Alfa Romeo MiTo or Fiat 500. Even if the factory is robotized, their supplier may not be robotized and their production technique might be influence the employees emotional conditions.

Therefore each Italian car is like a sculpture, you cannot find the same one. And Italian cars do not react as you wished, try to control a Ferrari 599 GTO. Jeremy Clarkson tried to do it in “Italian Job” and he failed, try to control an Alfa MiTo diesel. The electronic systems will help you but the car will control you. You will do what the car is ordering you!

And lastly British cars; very basic definition, there is always something is missing. In order to proof this, just look at British taps! They have separate taps for hot and cold water. You cannot find this in other part of the world. British engineers never connect hot and cold water together, you either burn your hands or freeze your hand. There is no balance and you can face with this ugly truth even in the most prestigious hotels or in houses. Everything looks excellent, suddenly you want wash your hand, and you burn your hands!

You can find this in British cars also, everything is excellent. Design, materials, engines but you cannot have a door closing aid in a Bentley Azure. This is a very basic technology from Germans, when your door is not fully closed the hydraulic system closes for you. But you cannot have this in a Bentley Azure! This car costs more than a country and you have to close your door properly by yourself. But still I like British cars they are combination of Mr. Bean and Paul Smith shirt!

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Mercedes, Pizza Express, Aston Martin, Deutsche Bahn, Maserati, Paul Smith

Fiat

Nowadays there are rumours about Ferrari. It is not about the Formula One championship, it is about the Fiat’s tendency to sell it. You didn’t read wrong, Fiat is considering to sell the most iconic brand under its management. This lunatic behaviour is a result of Fiat’s CEO Marchionne’s dream to be the biggest automotive manufacturer and become a remarkable person. Honestly, he did a great job recovering Fiat from bankruptcy to profitable condition. This is a real miracle, nearly seven years ago GM did not wish to buy Fiat because it was in a very condition but now Fiat bought some parts of Chrysler!

Machionne wants more from Chrysler, he wants to buy more shares but they need lots of money. Even though Chrysler is excellent at producing terrible and rubbish cars, it costs a lot of money to buy its shares! And the best option is to sell Ferrari and make money and expand the Fiat brand into US.

Expansion to US is a real big gambling, it is a different market. Actually it is a different continent! What works in Europe do not work in US! American may not wish to buy a car called Lancia which sounds like a pasta sauce. Alfa Romeo has potential but it is very hard to create a brand image and inform customers and motivate them to prefer this brand and etc.

Machionne has a very interesting plan; in 2014 he is planning to produce six millions of cars under Fiat brand! Six millions, in four years! I don’t have anything to say to this. He is planning to use Grand Cherokee platform to produce Maserati SUV, which would definitely fail. Also use Chrysler’s chassis for next generation Alfa Romeos. This does not sound very promising for six millions target.

In meantime, VW is interested on Ferrari. They thought, we destroyed Lamborghini and it is not enough for us, let’s destroy another Italian brand. Let’s put Audi A8’s buttons to Ferrari, replace the instrument panel with stupid looking Audi’s Red LCD screens. Then replace the keys with same keys from Skoda, add some more senseless Audi technology and use the VW EOS chassis for next generation Ferrari. This is a flash forward of Ferrari, if it is owned by VW. Also Lamborghini would be annoyed by the presence of Ferrari and they will try to sell to someone else.

 

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Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Audi, Ferrari

Secrets of Ferrari Formula One Team !

All the time we are exposed to TV programmes like “Secret of Formula One”. And they are always showing footages from air tunnels, engines parts, manufacturing and very similar things. But none of them tells anything about the Formula 1 Crew! Formula 1 is not just a pilot and its team manager, there are lots of people behind this show and we only a few of them on TV.

Recently, I learned a secret about Ferrari Formula 1 Team! The most secret information of Formula One world. No, they are not using alien technology or anti-gravity! They have the same technology as we have, or people who have Ferrari. I don’t think we can afford for Ferrari’s technology!

I chat with Ferrari through their Twitter account. They were waiting for their flight in airport. I thought they were waiting for their Ferrari Team jet but they weren’t waiting for this. So I thought, they might be waiting for their first or business class journey but no again! Unfortunately the whole team travels with economic class ticket!

Can you imagine this? They are the real people who achieved the Ferrari Team to be champion and promoted the sales of Ferrari cars but they travel in economic class! Come on Ferrari Spa, you can do better than economic class. I know it would be “expensive” but you are not a small Formula One team which is struggling on tight budget. Give these people proper business class tickets to relax during their trips :)

Ferrari Twitter

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British Airways, Ferrari

A new gladiator to arena: Lotus

British sports car manufacturer Lotus is trying to gain its position back. Proton owned (Lotus is owned by Proton, ugly truth!) revealed five (Esprit, Eterne, Elise, Elan and Elite) new models to compete with Italian and Germans and Aston Martin. After being away from the German vs. rest of the automotive companies gladiator games. Now with four new models Lotus is trying to enter the Colosseum.

What Lotus has done is a miracle, they revealed five different types of cars at the same time. We see this with Germans but Lotus is not that wealthy like Germans. Therefore I consider this as a great success. However sales may not be that successful! The CEO of Lotus declared that they are heading directly to Aston Martin, Ferrari, Porsche and Mercedes AMG territory. It is very easy to spell but extremely hard to achieve.

All these brands have their very royal and fanatic customers. People desire to have those brands and that’s a way to achieve their dreams. However Lotus is not a dream car anymore. I know for some people still a dream car like Pamela Anderson is a dream for people over 30 but new generation consider her as their mother! This is the same with Lotus. People don’t really know what really is Lotus.

I know that Lotus is excellent in handling and car engineering but trying to have a place in gladiator games is more than handling and engineering! Lotus has to create a dream but it won’t be very to achieve. I am sure some people will buy their new cars but Lotus should not have focused too many cars at the same time. Like Rolls-Royce, Lotus should have revealed news cars in a scheduled time frame.

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Lotus