One of the many exciting new features of the Ferrari California is the communications strategy which, in a first for the Prancing Horse, uses the internet as the main medium through which to present the car to the world.

One of the many exciting new features of the Ferrari California is the communications strategy which, in a first for the Prancing Horse, uses the internet as the main medium through which to present the car to the world.

Since its launch two months ago, the dedicated Ferrari California website has received one million direct hits, confirming Ferrari's success on the web. However, when the visitors rerouted through the official Ferrari portal www.ferrariworld.com and the many other sites linked to it, are added to that figure, it is estimated that at least 500 million people have viewed the images of the new Ferrari in only the first month since the first images were revealed.

Most of the visitors came, in order, from the USA followed by Italy and the UK, with the number of Japanese visitors to the site now exceeding the number of German visitors, taking over in fourth position. Also in the top 10 countries and rising fast are Taiwan, China and Australia.

This trend is also reflected in the sales figures for Ferrari's e-commerce site (www.ferraristore.com) where purchases have increased by 40% on the same period last year with 90% of orders coming from outside Italy. Ferrari have also announced that the first virtual video of the new Prancing Horse 8-cylinder in action on both road and track is now available at www.ferraricalifornia.com.