Ferrari: Under the Skin

Stylish exhibition at the Design Museum looking at the history of the Ferrari company and its cars.

OK I have to come clean that I know nothing about cars and hate Formula One racing so I did go into this with my “I’ll go and see anything“ hat on but I did enjoy it. The technology of the cars went over my head, but I loved the bits on the social history of the company and the cars were beautifully displayed and lit.

The archive section at the start was fascinating with super photos of the factories plus early races. There was also a lovely wall of design drawings which I appreciated as art works if not technologically.

I loved a video about the design of the body work and was amazed to see that the prototypes are modelled in clay so they can be developed in a very reactive way, being tested and tweaked without rebuilding. There was an example of a full size prototype with one side painted and the other side raw clay.

There was a fun section with seats and steering wheels you can try out. They were surrounded by examples of brochures and yearbooks. In the last room there were lots of racing cars including the car that won the 1952 British Grand Prix with the original trophy.

Closes on 15 April 2018

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