Ferrari officially opened its latest store on Wednesday lunchtime (May 6). Along with Las Vegas, Milan, Barcelona, Bologna, San Francisco, Beijing, Miami, Macau and many others, London now has a swaggering Ferrari emporium, halfway up tourist mecca Regent Street.
Senior Ferrari lieutenants know full well that extending the Ferrari brand in this way isn’t universally popular.
The temptation to stick that famous logo on all sorts of products is difficult to resist, especially when potential licensees start waving enormous cheques around.
But resist is exactly what Ferrari’s experts continue to do. Having said that, not everything in Ferrari’s stores is quite what a Prancing Horse purist would prefer to see , and it’s on the pricey side. But I guarantee you won’t be able to walk out of the place without picking up something (just don’t bother with the baby-gro, OK?).
Anyway, the opening was an enjoyable affair. Perhaps not for Kimi Raikkonen, who turned up en route to Barcelona and fielded the usual daft questions with his customary charm and enthusiasm.
I once accidentally ended up having lunch with Kimi, and the strange truth is that he is actually quite amusing. But not when caught in the full glare of the world’s media.
Watching him being shepherded through the throng was fascinating: as is often the case with F1 drivers, he’s small, densely muscular, but really, properly small.
God knows what was going on behind the shades, but he’s not a man who looks like he relishes the grip’n’grin of a major PR occasion.
But then, who does?
We like Kimi on Top Gear. He clearly doesn’t give a toss about anything apart from driving as fast as he possibly can. Which is impossibly fast, when he has the car to do it. ‘We have some new parts coming for this weekend,’ he said, with little in the way of conviction.
Also good to see that the event was enough to bring London to a standstill, though London was doing a pretty good job of that by itself.
As I was travelling to the store opening in the passenger seat of Nick Mason’s Ferrari 250 GTO, the heaving traffic was more of a challenge than usual.
We were part of a convoy that included a white 250 California Spider, a 275GTB Spider, a 288 GTO, an F40, F50 and Enzo, as well as a Scuderia Spider, 599 and new California.
Like Kimi, the 250 GTO is smaller than you’d think it would be, which meant that I was level with the bumpers of London’s aggressively driven delivery vans, some of which were perilously close to what is one of the world’s most valuable cars (current estimate: £16m).
With its racing clutch and allergy to sitting still in heavy traffic, Nick had his hands full, but we made it to the store without any drama.
The irony is that I’d struggle to pay for one of the scale models of a 250GTO on sale inside…
(If you do visit the store, let us know what you think. Is Ferrari bleeding the Prancing Horse dry?)
Having a chance to travel in a car driven by Nick Mason is probably the post exciting part of the whole thing.
Definitely not good. Every piece of Ferrari merchandise I see makes me dislike them just a little bit more. Used want a 275 or something of the like, as you do when you are a child, but now they have lost their appeal. Bad Ferrari!
Did the Ferraris have to pay the congestion charge?!
Ferrari merchandise is bought by people who want a piece of the Ferrari magic. Yet every time they sell another Ferrari toothbrush a little bit of that magic walks out the door with it, never to return. And the saddest thing of all is that sporting a piece of Ferrari merchandise is like carrying a big sign around telling everyone that you can’t actually afford to buy one of their cars…
i saw some of these cars yesterday, in particular the 250GTO which was just stunning. i have been known to stop and stare at the odd thing in the west end, but this was something else.
It wasn’t really in good taste to show-off Ferraris gadgets in UK for last two years. My girlfriend got me a T-shirt when she went to Rome and I’d put it on to seriously annoy my mates. To the point when one of them promised to pour petrol over me if he sees me in it one more time…
And I really agree with Lesh @5
If you can afford a car you probably won’t be interested in gadgets.
If you can’t afford car gadgets make you look like someone who likes sex games without a partner.
I would buy condoms if they make them.
I suppose with Italian reliability it wouldn’t make much sence, but still…
Only problem they would still ask £150.000.000.000 for one.
the car in front of the red one, in the silver. i have been wanting to know since i saw one driving on saturday a month or so ago (yes i did think i was the luckiest guy on the planet, they look and sound amazing), is it a 275 GT-B?
Thanks Mr. Barlow.
Thanks for not belonging to those guys, who are trying to crash and trash Kimi 24/7. There are just too many Kimi-haters out there. It’s really pissing me off. But what can one do…
Bye the way, despite coming from Germany, I`ve never been a fan of MS
The second I could afford an F430, I’d stop buying prancing horse shirts and caps. Yes.. it’s sad.
Wow, I love all of Ferrari’s cars.
Kimi is definatly the best person for this. But hang on, here it says, “We like Kimi on Top Gear.” When Lewis Hamilton came in they did have a real go at Kimi. “Was he drunk?” was what they said. But that’s Jeremy talking.
Welcome to England Kimi.
Your better than Lewis anyway.
And nobody argue, he is clearly better, it’s just that Ferrari are just thick when it comes to strategies. e.g. “hmmm… it’s bone dry out there, so lets put some Extreme Wet tyers on because we’re Ferrari and when we take stupid gambles they always work.” <Not. This was Malaysia 2009.
Belgium 2008, all they needed to do was bring Kimi into the pits and put on some wets when he was being chased by Lewis Hamilton, and then Kimi would have caught back up to Lewis Hamilton even before he reached the pit lane. Bugger me that was so annoying.
Good luck for Barcelona!
You can’t get much better than a 250 GTO. No Ferrari looks as beautiful and stunning that. If you own one then your biblicaly rich, a mint 250 GTO was auctioned last September for £15.7 million!
The new giftshop is a bit of a gimmick. You go there to buy something like a keyring with the Ferrari badge glued on it so you can pretend you own a Ferrari. That’s like saying i’m going to go on holiday lets go to the neighbours house. Doesn’t quite work.
Well I bought a fantastic (with the requisite price tag to match) sports Ferrari watch which I wear when I’m in casuals and I’m rather proud! And vain! And kitsch! And the engine cover case is fab! And who cares?!
See, the way the abuse the merchandise makes it impossible for me to buy a Ferrari.
That’s the only reason I don’t own one.
Well, on of the 2 reasons I don’t.
Are they going to be selling vomit with a ferrari badge on?
i bet they’re gonna sell laptops for £50,000
Hehe.. Nice one.
Someone should of bought a convoy of lamborghinis just to piss them off
Did Nick hum ‘wish you were here’ as the GTO just has its engine noise to entertain you ?
and yet again ferrari shot themselves in the foot, this is not what ferrari stand for what would old man enzo be thinking right now if he could see his beloved ferrari turn into nothing more than a heartless corparation.
I’ve visited the store in Venice and guess what? I did buy some stuff for my son.. and myself. And yes, i don’t have a Ferrari at my house only the little one’s on scale 1:18.
RW sung in ‘84: ‘Thanks, but I’ll wait for the F50′. Well… More fool him.
For the rest, I agree. Whoever owns a Ferrari won’t (or shouldn’t) be interested in haberdasheri with logo. Silly stuff. And Kimi gets my vote, just for not being PR-minded.
Funny little fact: that horse is the same as the one in the Porsche logo, look it up if you like. Ferrari got the right of useage because of a (very) satisfied German customer, way back.
Not quite. Nick was humming ‘Wish I wasn’t stuck here’. Those London buses look very nearly Ferrari red to me, btw…
on the KIMI. what a legend. you know what they say, “the star that burns twice as bright, lives half as long”.
Kimi took the motor racing world by storm, became world champion and despite his never ending hatred of the media hounding him, he still manages to stay really quiet and keep in his shell.
and i hear a lot of genuine people say that when you get to know kimi away from the cameras, he is a relly sound bloke. All this leads me to say one word:
ICEMAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
never look a prancing gist horse in the eye
Kimi just moved into the town where I live.
He has to do a looot of merchandising to pay for his new home…….
http://www.20min.ch/news/ kreuz_und_quer/story/1380 6205
He payed around 20 m€ for his new house.
i still love my ‘80 toyota corona…
Tho I don’t agree with sticking a Ferrari badge on just about anything, I don’t understand why people have a problem with seeing people wearing ferrari clothing. Man Utd fans wear their jerseys, whats wrong with me wearing a ferrari t-shirt? I gotta put a piece of cloth over me anyway, why not wear something which bears the badge of what i love?
Ferrari Ice Cream Choco flavor, made famous by Kimi…
ICE-cream-MAN Kimi!
oh-dear…
ferrari should dump the mercnadise, loose f1, and concentrate on making some properly sexy road cars. confusious say: Sometimes to go forwards, you must go backwards.
Ferrari, its new cars arnt that pretty (the california, whats with the big bum) the merchnadise department is more active than disneys (cheapens the brand) half the convy was in “the wrong colour” (ferraris are RED people!), and there f1 team is going backwards, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear…
still it doesnt stop me looking in barns in the hope of finding a gto or a dino 246
i can’t understand all those comments posted…. i’ve got 2 jaguars s-type, 1 jaguar xj and and 1 range rover sport in the last 5 years and got the umbrella and the hat tagged jaguar. i would have bought many other lovely things tagged jaguar, but forgot. that’s all.
Geez, all this anger. It’s not like the quality of their cars are going down because of this.
Hi Jason- just seen on a press release that you were interviewed by focal radio about the mini’s 50th. I work as a presenter on focal- just wondered what you were up to- hope tha family is good take it easy.
J
the thing is… unless you wear it inside a ferrari, fezza merchandise can advertise the fact you cant acually afford one of their real cars.
none the less it still looks bloody awsome.
i totally agree with all, they may be ferrari fans and think its clever but i like fish and can easily manage to go thru the day without a cod stuck to my t-shirt.as for kimi not being a big fan of the PR stuff, i remember eddie irvine in his ferrari days, back in the day he just wanted to test the car and practice instead of pleasing the sponsors at posh gigs and ceremonies nuff said i think…c ya