Visiting Turin has been on my list for a while, mainly because of their car museum (MAUTO), but then I also learned about their heritage in car manufacturing. I haven’t really checked anything before booking my flight (except flight prices), that’s how I ended up accidentally arriving on the day of the Abu Dhabi GP. I have once watched a race on my phone in a Burger King out of sheer necessity, but I didn’t want to repeat the experience. So I ended up going to the race screening at MAUTO.
Of course, I was in the heart of the Italian religion: Ferrari – and also it was Carlos’s (who is my emotional support driver as my sister once told me) last race with Ferrari, so I decided to ditch McLaren for this weekend and become a tifosi. I dressed in red and fully committed to cheering for Ferrari. The screening was in the aula of the museum with a huge screen set up and several rows of chairs. Obviously, most of the people were tifosi, but I could spot a few people in McLaren merch as well.
I have participated in race screenings before, but none of them were as passionate as this one – every Leclerc overtake (and there has been a few) had been greeted with a huge cheer and Verstappen almost taking out Piastri also resulted some high spirits (and then some collective sighs, when he turned out to be not successful). The result wasn’t what everybody hoped for, so a lot of the people left even before or during the podium ceremony.
It was a great experience for me, even if I understood almost nothing from the Italian commentary – the atmosphere was really special. If you are in Italy during any race, I suggest going to some community space and watch it like that – totally worth it.
The next day, I went back to the museum to look around. It is not the most modern or interactive place, so I would rate it a 3 out of 5. The temporary exhibition was about FIAT (of course, it was), which was maybe the most informative part for me – especially that part where they talked about what a great workplace FIAT was.
But the best part for me was that focused on racing, there was a whole long ile dedicated to red, Italian racing card (back in the day, race cars were painted based on nationality, so Italy was red (“rosso corsa”), Britain was green (“racing green”), Germany was white, etc). It was beautiful, especially with the background graphic of running horses and fire. As we all know, I am a sucker for read racing card, I enjoyed the experience very much, even if it was difficult to decipher which car was which because the information was placed not next to the card but on the other side.
If this was the only part of the museum, I still would say that it was worth but, but to be honest the rest for me was a bit underwhelming (compared to other car museums that I have already seen). There were highlights (like the purple Lamborghini Diablo that I just heard inspired Hamilton with his purple helmet – but honestly, I get it, I feel in love with that car) and funny things, of course, but without this racing isle, I would have been a bit disappointed. All in all, it took me 2 hours to go through the whole museum.
On the last day, of course I checked out the Lingotto building, which used to house the FIAT factory. The concept of having a test track (or any kind of track, really) on top of a building seems very absurd to me. (Mostly because of safety concerns, but also, how do you even get the cars up there?) Yet, this FIAT test track exists.
The internet was not my friend about my research into visiting this track – so there were some improvisation elements in my visit, so to make it easier for you – here is what you need to know. Look for the Pinacoteca Agnelli, which is an art museum and they have an elevator that can take you up to the track for 2 euros. They also have lockers that operate with a 1 EUR coin (I feel it is important to mention especially because I was forced to throw away my leftover pizza (in Italy!!!) in another unnamed museum, when they didn’t have lockers or any kind of storing facilities).
The track currently operates as a park and also an exhibition space with a lot of light art and modern art. I loved these a lot and they are also great photo ops, so even if someone is not into cars, visiting Lingotto can be fun for them as well.
On one of the information boards on the track it was said that it is still used to test electric cars (and there were traffic lights on the road, so I find this believable), but after a little research I found contradictory information – I am not actually sure what the truth is. Anyway, going back to the absurdity of all this being on the top – this was very cutting-edge technology during its heyday. It was also not the only building-top track (e.g. Imperia factory in Belgium or the Palacio Chrysler in Buenos Aires), but this trend never really took off.
The concept was that they moved the car parts around the building in a spiral upward fashion, until the car arrived complete at the top for testing. It was very new, because at that time the usual way of manufacturing a car was moving the workforce around and not the car.
With all this being said, it is a very special place, offers an amazing view to Turin and I believe it is also a nice piece of nature when it is not winter. I enjoyed checking it out, especially that it was the only FIAT related place I could visit. Having the bad luck I’m having, of course the FIAT Historic Center opened two days after my visit and the Heritage hub was also not open during my days there, but these two also work under the umbrella of the MAUTO (Museo Nazionale dell’Automobile), so if you manage to pick a better time (aka a full weekend), you should be able to visit them all.
All in all, I had a great, albeit short time on the track. A special experience altogether and people who like banked tracks like I do, it is a really nice one – even though there are security guards who make sure that you don’t climb them. If you are in Milan or Genoa or somewhere in the area, I think Turin can be a great day trip.
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