Autoblog

With the end of the year 2007, so came the end of Ferrari's 60th anniversary celebrations. Although the 60 special-edition 612 Scagliettis made to mark the occasion were nothing compared to the F40 and F50 supercars that were created to celebrate previous anniversaries, for its sixtieth Maranello partied it up in a number of ways, including an around-the-world rally. The relay baton that was passed off through each country on its global adventure was decorated with 60 emblems, each designed for the occasion and depicting an icon from each year of the company's history.

Now those emblems are being offered to customers as a collection, each minted in brass and mounted on a wooden base covered in red silk. Anchoring the display is the same Ferrari badge that goes on the boot lid of every new Ferrari road car. The collection is available for about $2000, but if you think nobody would drop that kind of cash on something like this, there are thousands of Ferrari collectors out there who are used to spending easily a hundred times that on a new car without batting an eye, and 1947 of them will have these hanging in their homes, offices or garage.

[Source: FerrariStore.com via Luxurylaunches.com]

Porsche and Ferrari fight like cats and dogs. Legend has it that a major motivation in the development of the F40 was Porsche's release of the 959. Fast forward 20 years when Ferrari rolled out the F430 GT to usurp the 911's dominance of sportscar racing. In an increasingly commercialized market, the fight has been taken to the merchandizing arena, where Ferrari's branding efforts are rivaled only by those of Porsche Design.

In the latest battle of this merchanizing war between the two supercar-makers, Porsche Design has opened its newest flagship store, which isn't in Stuttgart where Porsche is headquartered, nor is it in Austria where the design house is based; the new store takes up 145 square meters of real estate on the second floor of Hall B at the sprawling Frankfurt International Airport, a major hub for international air travel and the airbase for Lufthansa, Europe's second-largest airline.

We've reported previously on all manner of Porsche Design products – including kitchen cabinets, wristwatches, Adidas sneakers, power tools, mobile phones and downhill sleds – and most are available at the new store, which, along with retail outlets at airports in Munich, Vienna, London, Moscow, Dubai and Hong Kong (soon to be joined by additional locations in the Copenhagen, Zurich and Manchester terminals) caters to the burgeoning airport shopping market.

[Source: Luxurylaunches.com]

Ferrari's global branding efforts are accelerating as fast as its race and road cars, to the point where a third division was established just to manage it all. Heck, they've even got a Ferrari edition Segway scooter now. Next on the agenda: an aggressive expansion of Ferrari Store retail outlets, the locations that peddle all manner of scarlet wares with the Prancing Horse badge.

Ferrari's new global branding division, under the direction of former Red Bull lieutenant Dany Bahar, is planning to open no less than 40 new stores around the world over the next five years. The latest location just opened at Barcelona's El Prat International airport in Spain, soon to be joined by locations in Abu Dhabi and Moscow in the next few months, followed by Singapore, Macao and Honolulu next year. (Maybe Cleveland will get one soon! - JN)

Is this all getting to be too much? Many would say so, among them a good portion of the Autoblog writing staff. But as a counterpoint, if the added income ends up financing ever-faster road cars and further dominance on the race track, maybe there's something to it.

[Source: Inside Line, photo by Noah Joseph]

You just wanted to grab something from the liquor store, the same way you've done who knows how many times before. What you probably did not want to do is get in your truck in front of the liquor store and put it in drive ... then have your prosthetic leg come off at the worst time possible ... and get jammed in the worst place possible: on the accelerator. If that happened, as it did to Martin Niels of Beloit, WI, your loose leg would do the worst thing possible: drive your Chevy Silverado into the side of the building. Thankfully, no one was injured, and Nehls was only cited for driving without a valid driver's license -- surely not the worst ticket possible.

[Source: WTOP News]

Note: Since there was no pic of the actual incident, we found a random car-through-wall pic to use, which surprisingly was not that hard to find.

Ferruccio Lamborghini, as the story goes, approached Enzo Ferrari with ideas on how to improve his sportscars, but Enzo rebuffed him promptly. And so Lamborghini Autobomili SpA was born, hungry to beat Ferrari at its own game, and been trying to ever since.

But making high-performance exotic sportscars is only part of the game these days, and Ferrari is the undisputed market leader in putting its name on anything and everything. But just as its F1 challengers try to claw back a slice of the merchandising pie, so do Ferrari's road car rivals. Lamborghini has followed the Ferrari formula by introducing a wide range of branded merchandise, including partnerships with Nokia and with Asus to produce branded cell phones and laptop computers to rival those made for Ferrari by Motorola and Acer.

Among other strategies for increasing brand awareness and capitalizing on its prestigious name, Lamborghini is reportedly considering opening a chain of retail stores to sell its branded merchandise. Raging Bull merchandise is already sold in authorized dealerships and online, and at a small number of retail locations mostly in Italy, but opening more stores around the world is a strategy that has been working for the Prancing Horse, and if it works for Ferrari, it just might work for Lamborghini, too.

[Source: CNN Money via Luxist]

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