Panamerican 20,000
The Ferrari Panamerican 20,000 gets underway on Thursday
with the 599 GTB Fioranos, symbols of Italian technology and
enterprise
The new challenge facing Ferrari, the Panamerican 20,000,
will start on Thursday 24 August. The expedition will begin
from the Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte in the country of
Minas Gerais.
The journey will see two Ferrari 599 Fioranos travel over
32,000 km (20,000 miles), with journalists from around the
world behind the wheel on alternate stages. The tour will
grant Italy significant visibility: Ferrari is known as a
symbol of Italy and for this reason the cars will visit embassies
in the sixteen countries through which the convoy will travel.
There they will meet members of the Italian community and
the local media.
From Brazil, the convoy will travel through Argentina, Chile,
Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua,
Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, the USA and Canada,
and end up in the United States at the beginning of October.
The expedition will then move on to visit several US states
until it reaches Canada, before concluding in New York on
17 November.
The Panamerican 20,000 will also play a role in highlighting
'Made in Italy' and Ferrari's international partnerships.
In Brazil it will be at the heart of the Fiat Auto's local
activities (Fiat Automòveis is celebrating a 30 year
presence in the country and nine million cars produced) with
the start line ceremony to be held at Fiat's plant in Betim,
close to Belo Horizonte, which will be attended by 4,000 staff.
An event dedicated to Iveco will follow, as Iveco is providing
three back-up and spare parts vehicles, two Daily vehicles
and a City Class minibus. Iveco is developing a big presence
in Brazil with a range that is continually evolving.
Equally important is the role played by the other Italian
partners: Pirelli which will provide three kind of tyres suitable
for all environmental conditions among which a new tyre developed
especially for Ferrari; Saima Avandero, co-ordinator of the
expedition that will ensure the complex customs procedures
on a voyage that will cross 17 borders; and, to conclude,
Buonitalia that will promote Italian culinary excellence to
the world.
Moreover, Shell is behind the 599 GTB Fioranos in a very visible
demonstration of the close technical partnership between Shell
and Ferrari. Shell is providing a suite of Shell V-Power performance
fuel and Shell Helix and Q lubricant products for the Ferraris
and a dedicated Shell technical support team will accompany
the cars from the start in Brazil to the finish in New York.
The 32,000 km journey will include a number of events related
to partnership activities. Two of these will take place during
the United States section where visits will be paid to an
Alcoa aluminium smelter in Texas and a forging plant in Ohio.
Alcoa produces the spaceframes for the 599 GTB Fiorano. Additional
visits will be made to the Iveco factory in Sete Lagoas; and
to Case IH (a world leading brand which produces the Fiat
Group's agricultural machinery) factories in Curitiba (Brazil),
in Racine and New Holland (USA).
The expedition will also have a tourism-commercial aspect
thanks to t-shirts specially designed by Puma. Puma is a sponsor
of the Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro and Ferrari licensee and
will provide the team's outfit for the Panamerican 20,000.
This will be dedicated to each of the countries visited and
through a symbol that will be echoed on the bodies of the
two Ferraris as the tour progresses. The first symbol will
be the Christ of Corcovado in Brasil finishing with the Statue
of Liberty in the USA going through the pyramids, the Maya
and the Inca icons and the Canadian Maple leaf.
While the tour is in South and Central America, the support
vehicles will be by Fiats produced in Brazil, but once the
convoy reaches San Diego in the USA, they will be substituted
by Alfa Romeo 159 Sportwagons. This change will be made in
order to underline America's passion for the Alfa Romeo brand.
The route and main stages
The Panamerican 20,000 route is divided into 15 stages corresponding
to the changeover points for the various teams of journalists
taking part. The Tour gets underway on August 24th from Belo
Horizonte and six days later the cars will make their way
into Foz do Iguazu 2,000 km away. From there they head west
to Argentina and onto San Pedro de Atacama in Chile which
they will reach after five days and 1,800 km of driving through
pampas and the first of the salt plains. This is where the
toughest part of the tour begins and will see the cars climb
to altitudes of more than 4,000 metres in the Andes. They
will head north setting a course for La Paz in Bolivia which
they reach on September 7th after four more days on the road
and having added another 1,100 km to their mileage as they
zoom down the dirt roads through the salt plains. After 1,700
km and 6 more days the cars will drive into Lima where they
will encounter the vestiges of the ancient Inca civilisation.
The next four stages to Mexico will take them through spectacular
landscapes en route to Quito, Pasto, Cartagena, Panama, Managua
on an 8,000 km, 18-day dash.
The two Mexican stages, which start from Palenque on October
13th, traverse the lands of the Aztecs and the Mayans as well
as Baja California. It will take 10 days to cover this 4,500
km distance.
From Las Vegas, the Tour turns east, calling to Houston and
also making its way through Monument Valley and Dallas, before
arriving into Miami on November 3rd. This 6,000 km stretch
will take 9 days to complete.
At this point, the Tour will move north to Washington before
arriving into New York on November 17th having first called
to Chicago and Toronto. A 5,000 km dash that will take 11
days in all.
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