The Lamborghini Museum and the Ferrari Museum With Kids

Thank you to the Lamborghini Museum and the Ferrari Museum for hosting our family’s visits.  As always, all opinions are my own. 

My eight and ten year old boys are sports car enthusiasts, and Lamborghinis and Ferraris are particular favorites.  When we planned to spend time in Venice and Florence on our summer vacation, my husband decided that visiting the Lamborghini Museum and the Ferrari Museum would be a dream come true.  Since we were planning to visit plenty of art museums, churches and historical sites during our trip to Italy and Paris, it only seemed fair to add these car museums to our itinerary for our young car aficionados.

Lamborghini and Ferrari Tours in Italy

Travel to Modena, Italy

Unlike all the other attractions on our itinerary, the Lamborghini Museum and Ferrari Museum are not in the middle of a major metropolitan area or easily reachable by train.  Because rental cars are not available from the pedestrian only city-center of Venice, we chose to take a train from Venice to Bologna and pick up a rental car near the Bologna train station.  We hoped to have some time to explore Bologna, but getting to the rental agency and picking up our rental car took longer than we anticipated, so we immediately headed toward Modena, which is known as the “Land of Motors”, as soon as we got into our car.

Visiting the Lamborghini Museum in Italy

After an absolutely lovely three course, fixed price lunch at Glamour Caffe e Cucina, our boys spotted a white Lamborghini behind us, and the anticipation jumped up a few notches.  A few minutes later, we reached the Lamborghini Museum in Sant’Agata Bolognese.  Ferruccio Lamborghini founded Automobili Lamborghini in Sant’Agata Bolognese in 1963.  The Museum has two floors with about 25 exhibited cars.  Its collection includes both current and vintage cars, and its current temporary exhibit, Film Emotions, features cars appearing in Hollywood films.  My favorite was Christian Bale’s Aventador LP 700-4 from Batman The Dark Knight Rises.

The exhibit included its own version of the Hollywood Walk of Fame and a number of other famous Lamborghinis, including a classic matte black Jalpa from Rocky IV, a Countach from The Cannonball Run, the Huracán Coupé  from the 2016 Marvel movie Doctor Strange and an orange Miura P400 from The Italian Job.

We all oohed and aahed over the cars displayed in the Museum while my husband and sons waited for their Factory Line Tour to begin.  Only two Veneno prototypes, three Veneno coupes and nine Veneno Roadsters were ever manufactured, including this one, which is my 10 year old son’s favorite car.  One of the five Veneno coupes was listed for $9.4 million last year.

2014 Veneno Coupe

My eight year old son’s favorite Lamborghini was the 2015 Huracán GT3, which was Lamborghini’s first race car developed at Sant’Agata Bolognese.

Because we are in the market for a new SUV, the boys were trying to get my husband and I to consider the Urus, the world’s first super sport utility vehicle.  This 4/5 passenger beauty is the fastest SUV in the world with a top speed of 190 miles per hour.  Unfortunately, we did not place an order during our visit….

Lamborghini Urus SUV

The Lamborghini Factory Line Tour was the absolute highlight of our visit, but no photography was permitted.  Guests store their camera equipment, phones and wallets in lockers before heading to the factory floor, which employs about 200 workers.  My husband and sons learned that assembly of the Huracán includes 23 stations, and only 13 Huracáns are completed each day.   They were absolutely thrilled to watch the assembly of the V12 Aventador, which includes 12 stations.  About 5.5 V12 Aventadors are completed each day, and everything can be customized.   A Lamborghini is typically delivered to a first-time customer approximately one year after the order is placed, but repeat customers can get subsequent cars faster.  One owner has more than 90 Lamborghinis!  More Lamborghinis are sold in the US than anywhere else in the world.

The boys were especially impressed to see how every part of each Lamborghini’s interior is wrapped in perfect leather.  Lamborghini factory workers examine leather and identify any imperfections.  Then, a computer program determines patterns to utilize as much of the perfect leather as possible, discarding any portion with even the tiniest imperfection.  At the end of the tour, the boys each received a leather sample with an embossed Lamborghini bull.

Admission to the Lamborghini Museum costs €15 for adults, €5 for kids aged 6-14 and is free for kids aged 0-5.  A combination ticket to the Museum with a factory tour costs €75 for adults and €50 for kids aged 6-14.  Children aged 0-5 are not permitted on the factory tour, so my daughter and I continued to explore the Museum while my husband and boys went on the tour.  I have to admit that I imagined myself in the driver seat of quite a few of those Lamborghinis. We not only enjoyed checking out the cars but also loved the Museum’s vending machine, which was full of inexpensive treats and bottled water for €.32, which was the cheapest price we found anywhere on our trip.  There is something available for purchase at the Lamborghini Museum that won’t require a second mortgage : ).  The Lamborghini Factory tour was an absolute trip highlight for our kids.

Lamborghini Aventador

Visiting the Ferrari Museum in Italy 

We next headed to the Ferrari Museum in Maranello, about a 45 minute drive.  This classic car museum in Ferrari’s headquarters explores the history of the Ferrari cars and, of course, the Prancing Horse.

The Museum’s exhibits featured the life of Enzo Ferrari, who was born in 1898 in Modena, and the development of Ferraris.  The walls of the Museum are covered with history, photographs and exhibits. Ferrari made his first car in 1929 and said, “If I were to say that when I started out I imagined making more than just one car, I’d be lying.”  Obviously, the world is glad that Ferrari accomplished more than he intended.  The Ferrari Museum also included a number of vintage cars, including the 290 MM, my older son’s favorite vintage model.

My favorite was the 250 GT Berlinetta.  Even though the model shown was not the classic Italian red, I loved the creative paint job with the heart on the hood.

Another exhibit showed cars driven by Enzo Ferrari, who clearly had no shortage of amazing cars at his disposal.

My sons’ favorite Ferraris were the 488 Pista and F12 TDF.  The 488 Pista featured uniquely shaped lights and a super-sporty paint job.  TDF, which is short for Tour de France, offers track level performance on the road.  It can reach 62 miles per hour in 2.9 seconds.

Ferrari 488 Pista

Ferrari F12 TDF

We also enjoyed the beautiful classic red Ferrari 812 Superfast, which debuted in 2017 and has a top speed of 211 miles per hour.

A big highlight of the Ferrari Museum was the Formula 1 cars.  Of Ferrari’s 1,600 employees, about 450 work on Formula 1 cars.  Ferrari has been producing Formula 1 cars since 1950, and Ferraris have won 31 world championships.  My eight year old was excited to see the Ferrari Formula 1 race cars and the Wall of Fame with each racer’s helmet.

Ferrari Formula 1 Race Cars

Admission to the Ferrari Museum in Maranello costs €16 for adults and €6 for children 0-18 who are accompanied by family members.  A combined ticket for the Modena and Maranello Museums costs €26 for adults and €10 for children 0-18 who are accompanied by family members.  Production line factory tours are not available to the public, but there is a bus tour that departs at 12:30 and 1:30 each day.

Why We Loved the Lamborghini Museum and Ferrari Museum For Kids

Our visits to the Lamborghini Museum and Ferrari Museum were the perfect trip off Northern Italy’s beaten path and a nice compliment to the art, architecture and history that we focused on during our time in Italy.  Even though I am admittedly not a supercar enthusiast, I thoroughly enjoyed checking out all the cars, which were each works of art in their own right.  It was an amazing experience, even though we didn’t have the chance to test drive any of the supercars.   We’ll absolutely arrange that on our next trip : ).

Trying to decide between the Ferrari or Lamborghini Museum?  There’s no bad choice.  Planning a family trip to Italy, check out our other blog posts about Rome, Florence and Venice and our listing of all destinations in Italy.