Recently I visited the amazing Caramulo museum.
Every automobile passionate has a favorite brand/manufacturer. I remember the long discussions I had about the best car in the world. My cousin was a Porsche fan, and I was a Ferrari addicted. I did not understand how someone could prefer Porsche rather than Ferrari. But today I think that it is a similar irrational choice such as supporting a football team. Off course it is easy to agree that a first division team is better than a second division one. Yet, when you are comparing the 3 or 4 top teams, there is no valid foundation, neither consensual opinion about which one is the best. What are the main criteria? The number of supporters? The number of trophies? Only the international trophies?
So, I think the same happens for automobile passions. Today, I cannot claim that Ferrari is the best. So, what makes me love Ferrari so much? I think there were 3 main reasons:
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Gilles Villeneuve. When I started watching F1 at the end of 70s and beginning of 80s, the Ferrari was one of the leader teams and Gilles Villeneuve was a crazy racing driver which performs some of the most nuts maneuvers. He died in 1982 in crash caused by a collision.
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I had a nice collection of miniature Ferraris including: 250 GTO, 288 GTO, GTS, Testarossa, F40, and many others
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Occasionally I discovered a Ferrari parked in the street. It was not so easy to saw a Ferrari as you saw a Porsche and that difficulty made my passion grow. On the other hand, at that time, I never saw a Lamborghini, Rolls Royce, Bentley, Auston Martin, etc. So, I had no term of comparison. But several times I saw a Ferrari. And those were exciting moments for a child passioned by cars. I also remember when the first F40 arrives to the Ferrari stand at Oporto and the day I seen it for the first time.
Recently I visited Caramulo museum, which I recommend a lot. Yet I cannot hie my frustration for not seeing any single Ferrari. I was expecting to see them because any google search about this museum returns Ferrari photos. Yet, those photos were from a temporary exposition occurred in that museum. I hope one day this wonderful museum made from many personal contributions can include some Ferraris permanently.
