Family-owned motoring business, Meridien Modena, has invested £3.5 million in a new Ferrari service centre, based near its showroom in Lyndhurst, Hampshire.

Located on the Hounsdown Business Park, the 14,000 sq-ft, two floor service centre provides an additional servicing facility enabling the Meridien Modena team to complete restorations, pioneering technical refurbishments, as well as routine scheduled servicing on Ferrari vehicles.

Creating seven new jobs including two full-time apprentice technicians from September, Meridien Modena will have more than 40 staff at the centre.

With 13 service bays, scheduled service times will be reduced from a peak of six weeks to between three and five days.

Two service bays will be dedicated to working on classic Ferrari’s which are more than 20 years old as Meridien Modena has officially been recognised by the Italian brand as one of only nine authorised Classiche workshops in the UK.

The centre also includes a customer lounge where they can view the workshop through floor to ceiling glass.

The centre has the capability to accommodate a total of 80 vehicles onsite, including a storage area to house 35 cars on the first floor. It is equipped with lever-less tyre fitting equipment, integrated work tool stations delivering technicians with retractable oil, water, compressed air and power, plus a large parts carousel system which will enable 3,000 parts to be stored, as well as high voltage special tooling to work on hybrid vehicles.

Chris Ambrose, who is heading up the Ferrari service centre team as service manager, said: “This revolutionary facility has the newest technology available for customers, so they can rest assured that their car will be in good hands if it requires any work to be carried out or routine maintenance.

“A key focal point in the centre of the workshop is a first-floor vehicle lift. The first-floor has 14 storage lifts which allows 35 vehicles to be stored to allow the workshop below to remain free flowing for daily work.”

 

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Meridien Modena received the Ferrari Global Aftersales Dealer of the Year Award at the annual Ferrari Dealer Conference, held earlier this year at the Fiorano Circuit in Italy.

The judges said the Lyndhurst-based dealership had won the award in recognition of ‘hitting and exceeding various targets and for customer satisfaction throughout the year across the service and parts departments.’

Glenn Butt, director at Meridien Modena, said: “The significant investment in the new centre and its facilities ensures that we meet the exemplary standards expected from the Ferrari brand. 

“It is testament to the team’s hard work that we were awarded Ferrari Global Aftersales Dealer of the Year 2017. We were absolutely thrilled to receive the Ferrari Portofino V8 Engine, which is on display in our new service centre for customers to come along and see up close for themselves.

“We are also proud to be the only centre on the south coast that will be able to offer the aftersales facility element of the Ferrari ‘Classiche’ service, a service which can be provided to classic and competition cars.

“At our new facility we’ll be able to provide all the mechanical repairs and inspections needed to restore or rebuild a classic Ferrari and ensure each vehicle complies with the original specifications. This is an incredibly exciting element for us, as previously all parts of the Classiche service were carried out in Maranello, Italy.”