Down in the Republic of San Marino, close to Italy’s Adriatic resort towns of Rimini and Cattolica, Sandra and Alessio Vetrano look after the well-known Maranello Rosso collection.
This is an eclectic selection of Ferraris, the core of which remain in the Museo while other exhibits are constantly changing, thus making return visits always worthwhile. Alessio stresses that, in addition to allowing enthusiasts and the knowledgeable to see rare and exotic examples of the Prancing Horse marque, the most important aspect of his curatorship is to generate interest among much-younger people so as to help pass on the heritage of what they have established to future generations. After all, there’s no point in having a museum of Ferraris, or any other marque, if, in the years to come, new visitors have no idea why they are there.
In order to broaden the appeal of the collection and bring more of Italy’s motor-sport heritage before the public, there is a new project under development and this is the establishment of an Italian public Abarth museum. To this end, in the basement of the Maranello Rosso collection building, a number of competition and road-going Abarths has been drawn together.
The cars are a superb cross-section of Abarth’s Corso Marche prodigious output. The collection is not yet open to the public—Alessio hopes that that will happen sometime in the middle of 2008—but note it in your diaries anyway.
Much time has been spent ensuring the high quality of the exhibits and, certainly, their display of sport prototypes leaves little to the imagination with examples of some of the rarest early sports racers on show.
We will keep you informed on further details as soon as they are available.
By Peter Collins
