Until this morning (3 March 2007) there’d been no such thing as a popular traffic jam in Melbourne but when more than 80 Ferraris took to the streets and motorways of Melbourne, the sights and sounds of Australia’s biggest ever Ferrari get together changed everything.

“Our original plan was to have 60 cars in the Cavalcade, one for each year of Ferrari’s history,” explains Kevin Wall, General Manager for EAI, the Australian Ferrari importer. “However, such was the enthusiasm for the event from Ferrari owners not just in Victoria, but from across Australia that we have ended up with 88 cars taking part, making this an even more glorious celebration of everything Ferrari in Australia.”

Ferrari fans crowed the 15 km route of the Ferrari 60th Anniversary Cavalcade, cheering on their favourite models and savouring the sound of so many high performance V8 and V12 engines. Some the rare Ferrari’s taking part in the Cavalcade included a rare 750 Monza and a 212 similar to the first Ferrari to ever come to Australia, the Ferrari F40 and F50 that marked previous significant points in Ferrari’s history, Ferraris road going racing cars, the F355 and F360 Challenge, the evocative Dino and the latest Ferrari super car, the Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano.
 

The Ferrari 60th Anniversary Cavalcade started at the Crown Entertainment Complex and left the city centre via City Link, before heading north over the Bolte Bridge. Looping around the north of the city through Royal Park, the Ferrari’s arrived in Lygon Street for the Grand Prix Festival Celebrating Ferrari’s 60th Anniversary’, a massive street party to celebrate everything Ferrari in the heart of Melbourne’s Italian community.

“No one normally likes a traffic jam,” says Mr Wall, “but when it’s made of more than a AUS$100 million of Ferraris, that’s a whole different matter and it’s another sign of the pleasure and passion that Ferrari has produced during its unique 60 year history!”

Ferrari is celebrating this remarkable history world wide with a relay event of which the events in Sydney and Melbourne are the Australian legs. The relay started in Abu Dhabi, site of future Ferrari Theme Park, on 29 January. After Middle East, the journey goes across China, Japan, Australia, South Africa, America and the whole of Europe, and will end at Maranello on 23 June. The relay will involve over 10,000 Ferrari owners and their cars of all ages. These will act as symbolic “bearers” of a specially commissioned relay baton adorned with 60 badges symbolising the most extraordinary events in the marque’s 60-year history.