Ferrari’s Other 24-Hour Race

The evocative curved roof of the Museo Enzo Ferrari in Modena is resplendent in canary yellow, the town’s civic colour. Inside you descend a smooth, wide slope into a gleaming bowl of brilliant white space to access the exhibits on display. Currently it is the Supercars exhibition that is wowing visitors from around the world. It all looks great, from the cars themselves to the fun, interactive consoles dotted around the museum space, and the giant overhead cinema screen that every half-hour presents an engaging ten-minute company history. Everything runs like clockwork.

But, as Museum Director Michele Pignatti-Morano explains, creating such a great visitor experience requires a lot of hard work by a lot of people. He and his dedicated staff have to climb a logistical mountain during months of careful planning. “Once the theme is decided, the whole team, the whole company, works on the contents,” he says. Those months of planning come down to a precision production schedule because the setting up is all done in the space of just twenty-four hours, when one annual exhibition makes way for the next, opening on February 18, the birthday of Enzo Ferrari.

Click to watch the Museo Enzo Ferrari Supercars exhibition take shape

“Getting a dozen highly-valued rare cars out when dismantling the closing exhibition, and another set of cars in for the next one, is no easy task,” Pignatti-Morano admits. With a nod to Formula One, the Director adds: “The whole team has to be concentrated and co-ordinated. Just like a pit stop.” Dozens of trained technicians, working through the night, operate in tandem with a fleet of dozens of specialised trucks arriving, often from abroad, and departing. To schedule. Unseen by the public, all that planning and hard work pays off when Pignatti-Morano sees the expressions on the faces of the people, young and old, from all over Italy and abroad, arriving year round at the modern glass-fronted entrance to the museum.

Designed by Czech architect Jan Kaplický and inaugurated in 2012, in 2024 some 300,000 visitors were welcomed by the Museo Enzo Ferrari - MEF., and its next door museum, the original house where the company founder was born and grew up.