JCT’s life in the fast lane with Ferrari

John Tordoff, managing director, said the £800,000 investment at Brooklands in south Leeds would keep his company ahead of the competition in the luxury car market.

He told the Yorkshire Post: “We have gone from having one car in the back of a Fiat showroom in Bradford to having a fantastic new facility. As the Ferrari brand has grown over those 30 years, we have grown with it.”

JCT600 sells around 90 new and used Ferraris a year and demand is “quite buoyant”, said Mr Tordoff.

The refurbishment took six months to complete and features an Atelier workshop, where customers can choose from a range of bespoke options to personalise their new Ferrari.

David Clapham, brand director of specialist cars at JCT600 Brooklands, said: “It is a long-term investment. Long term we see Leeds as a major hotspot for luxury items.

“We enjoy good business with our other brands and with Ferrari in particular we have a very exciting model range and the future looks very bright.”

Matteo Torre, regional manager for Ferrari North Europe, told the Yorkshire Post about his company’s philosophy and approach to design, manufacturing and skills.

He said: “The value of the company is to be recognised as the best sport car manufacturer in the world and we give a lot of attention to the performances of our car and the satisfaction of our customers.”

Ferrari produced around 7,200 cars last year at its site in Maranello, near Modena in northern Italy.

The integrated plant houses a design and development centre, engine manufacturing machinery, paint and assembly shops and a race track to test the cars.

Mr Torre said: “We try to combine the automatisation of the assembly with the craftsmanship and artisanship of our production. Every car is different. We produce cars only to the specification of our customers. We don’t produce cars for stock.”

Design group Pininfarina works with Ferrari’s in-house team on the unique look of Ferrari cars. New models include the FF, a four seat, four-wheel drive grand tourer.

Mr Torre said: “You must have a sense of beauty, a very developed sense of beauty. The design is a big part of the development of the car.

“We spend a lot of time refining a design that can fit to the performances that you require and our Italian taste for beauty. We are very proud to be an Italian company and owned by an Italian company with an Italian chairman and, for sure, we use an Italian designer, Pininfarina.”

The company has in-house training for its staff and runs apprenticeship programmes. It works with schools and universities to select future talent.

Germany is the Ferrari’s biggest market in Europe, ahead of the UK and Italy, where supercar owners have been hit with the ‘superbollo’, a new tax targeting horsepower.

On the issue of environmentally friendly cars, Mr Torre said Ferrari pays close attention to reducing consumption and emissions and is investing accordingly.

He added: “The new technology that we have in our recent cars – direct injection – is paying dividends because the reduction has been very significant.

“Our trend and our effort is focused in this direction. Even if our car is high performance, the attention to the consumption and emission is very strong.”

While Mr Tordoff said Ferrari customers come in all shapes and sizes, Mr Torre said the typical owner is an entrepreneur who is passionate about cars. “He likes to drive a car. They are not cars to be chaffeur-driven. He is male and aged between 35 and 55. We are targeting women as well because with the new car, California, is a more grand turismo car than a pure sport car.”

Ferrari is 90 per cent owned by Fiat. Piero Ferrari, son of founder Enzo, holds the remainder.

The company sold 574 cars in the UK in 2011, up from 467 in 2010. Prior to the economic crisis, the company sold up to 600 a year in the UK.

It expects to beat 2011’s performance this year.

Mr Torre joined Ferrari in 1989. He said: “I love it. Because it represents what I really like in automotive. It is quite rare to work for a manufacturer where the attention to details and the relationship with the customer is so close.

“To be in my role I have the opportunity to deal with the dealers but also to deal with interesting people like our customers. It can be very inspiring sometimes.”

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