Modena does not need to shout. The hills roll, the food speaks in textures and memory, and the cars, especially this weekend, did the rest.
At the fifth edition of Cavallino Classic Modena, held at Massimo Bottura’s Casa Maria Luigia, Ferrari’s spiritual roots were not just acknowledged. They were fed, watered, and allowed to breathe. No hype. No spectacle. Just excellence. Aluminum and lacquer idling amongst olive trees.
The three Best of Show winners did not just win. They stood apart. The 1954 Ferrari 250 Monza, chassis 0442M, was one of the Carrera Panamericana warriors. It looks like it was drawn with a single stroke of a pencil pressed too hard. The 1960 250 GT Cabriolet, chassis 2381, wore Abete Metallizzato. A shade that feels more like silence than paint. And the 1966 275 GTB/4, chassis 09021, the long nose Paris show car, sat still in a way that suggests it has nothing left to prove.
Piero Ferrari was here. So was Enzo Mattioli Ferrari. But the real celebrity was the silence between gearshifts during Sunday’s parade through the center of town. The cars rolled to the Museo Enzo Ferrari. Kids and old women leaned over balconies like saints were passing by. Nobody reached for a phone. You do not capture it. You let it burn in.
Chairman Luigi Orlandini called it a rigorously selected field. That is polite. What he meant was that nothing made it in just because it was red or valuable. Twenty six Platinum Awards were handed out. Not because they were expected. Because the quality demanded it.
Saturday’s concours moved like a well-practiced orchestra. No clashing elements. No obvious overproduction. Bottura’s version of hospitality was slow food, quiet music, a breeze. At night, Osteria Francescana became a kind of altar to craft, where each course mirrored the intention and detail of the cars parked outside.
There are bigger events. There are louder ones. But none with this much soul. Cavallino Modena does not celebrate Ferrari. It just sets the table and lets it be what it has always been.
