All it takes is money

The New York Times has an article by John Tagliabue about the Ferrari factory:

To walk through the back gate of the Ferrari automotive works here and stroll down Viale Enzo Ferrari is to enter a museum of architecture. To the left is a wind tunnel designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano, a soaring tangle of immense gray tubes and cubes where Ferrari’s ear-splitting, nerve-tickling, expensive automobiles are tested for aerodynamic properties. To the right is the finishing plant for engine blocks and other components, designed by Marco Visconti — three sets of huge glass blocks floating on greenery.
Farther down is the sprawling new assembly hall, designed by Jean Nouvel, the French architect who won the Pritzker Prize this year, in gleaming metal and mirrored glass. One side faces a masonry wall of the old Ferrari works, erected in the 1940s by Enzo Ferrari, who started building his sports cars after World War II. In the evening, the ruddy color of the old wall is illuminated, casting an eerie red glow on Mr. Nouvel’s creation.
“We had three goals,” said Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, Ferrari’s president, who began commissioning star architects, beginning with Mr. Piano, in 1997. “We wanted to renew Ferrari’s organization, to eliminate the division into series A and series B among our employees, and to maintain, not to lose, the spirit of Ferrari.”
What gives Ferrari’s project its edge is its ambition to rebuild the entire Ferrari works, from engine block foundry to final assembly plant, not just one building, according to designs of leading architects. Moreover, the project is reaching its conclusion just as the global financial crisis, which will sweep away many of the bonuses that bought Ferraris in the past, undercuts the automobile market.
Last year Ferrari sold about 6,400 cars, including 1,761 in the United States and Canada. In the first eight months of this year, sales rose almost 25 percent, to 4,953. If sales should soften in traditional markets, like the United States, Ferrari is rapidly opening new markets. It entered China in 2004, and last year sold 200 cars there. “There will always be 6,000 people in the world who will want a Ferrari,” Mr. Montezemolo said. Ferrari’s results are good news for its parent company, Fiat. Though Ferrari accounts for only about 6 percent of Fiat’s total revenue, it generates more than 26 percent of its profit.

Rico says he's not sure he'd want one even if he could afford one, but it's nice that they're out there...