In the autumn of 1996 Maserati’s own historic cars were bound for a London saleroom. They came home to Modena instead, bought by a man who had once worked as a welder in Maserati’s workshops and had since designed the machine that packed the Panini stickers. The Maserati Umberto Panini Collection keeps them at Marzaglia, on the plain west of the city, in a hangar at the family’s airfield beside Modena’s circuit, and it tells the marque’s story alone, from a single-seater of 1934 to the MC20.
For almost thirty years the cars stood on Umberto Panini’s organic farm, Hombre, among the cowsheds and the wheels of Parmigiano, and in June 2025 they moved a few kilometres to the hangar. The story they tell begins in a city that would not let them go. Modena raised the alarm in 1996, and one of its own answered it.
In Brief
- The collection reopened in June 2025 in a hangar at the Panini family’s airfield at Marzaglia, west of Modena, beside the city’s circuit.
- Its core is Maserati’s own historic collection, which Umberto Panini kept in Modena in 1996, days before it was to be sold in London.
- Since the move it shows Maserati alone, more than a century of it, from the 6C/34 of 1934 to the MC20.
- Among the cars are a 250F, the model of Maserati’s only Formula One world title, the 420M/58 “Eldorado” and one of the four A6GCS berlinettas bodied by Pinin Farina.
- For almost thirty years the collection stood on Hombre, the family’s organic Parmigiano Reggiano farm, a few kilometres away.
- Umberto Panini, a welder in Modena’s workshops before he emigrated to Venezuela, designed the Fifimatic, the machine that packed the Panini stickers.
History
Umberto Panini was born on 3 February 1930 at Pozza di Maranello, the seventh of eight children. As a young man he worked as a welder and mechanic in Modena’s workshops, Maserati’s among them, and in 1957 he left for Venezuela, where he stayed seven years. At home his brothers had begun to sell footballers’ stickers from the family’s newspaper business, and in 1964 he came back to join them. He ran the firm’s production and designed its machines, the best known the Fifimatic, which packed the stickers into their packets. When the company was sold, at the end of the 1980s, he gave himself to Hombre, an organic farm named after the nickname he had brought home from Venezuela, whose Friesian cows give the milk for its Parmigiano Reggiano.
Maserati had shown its historic cars at its works on Viale Ciro Menotti since 1965. When Fiat took the company over in 1993, the collection stayed with Alejandro de Tomaso, its former owner. Maserati took only the engines; the cars went to England, to Brooks, whose sale was set for 2 December 1996, the day after Maserati’s eighty-second birthday. Modena raised the alarm that October, and the culture minister, Walter Veltroni, and the city’s mayor, Giuliano Barbolini, looked for a buyer. A few days before the sale, Umberto Panini struck his deal with de Tomaso, Brooks withdrew the cars, and they came home to Modena.
They joined the museum Umberto had opened on the farm in the early 1990s, with its other makes, its motorcycles and its tractors, in a hall built inside like a railway station of the early 1900s, with an iron frame and cast-iron columns. There they stood for almost thirty years, among the cowsheds. Umberto Panini died in Modena on 29 November 2013, and his four children carried the collection on. In 2025 the family moved it a few kilometres, to a hangar at its airfield at Marzaglia, and on 7 June it opened there, given over to Maserati alone.
The Collection
The hangar tells one story, Maserati’s, across more than a century. The racing cars are the oldest: a 6C/34 of 1934, the model in which Tazio Nuvolari won the Modena Grand Prix that October and, a week later, the race at Naples; a 6CM; and a 250F, the model with which Juan Manuel Fangio won Maserati’s only Formula One world championship, in 1957.
Two cars carry stories of their own. The 420M/58 “Eldorado” was built in 1958 for the 500 Miles of Monza, the Race of Two Worlds, at the order of the Eldorado ice-cream company, and it raced not in Italy’s red but in its sponsor’s colours: the first single-seater in Europe to carry the name of a company from outside motor racing. Stirling Moss drove it at Monza on 29 June 1958; its steering failed in the last heat, and he was classified seventh. The A6GCS Berlinetta has a dealer to thank. Pinin Farina built for Ferrari, so Maserati’s dealer in Rome, Guglielmo “Mimmo” Dei, bought six chassis himself and had four of them bodied there. All four survive, and one of them is here.
The road cars run from an A6G of 1954 through the 3500 GT Touring, the Mistral, the Ghibli, the Bora and the Merak to the Alfieri prototype and the MC20. Between the eras stand a Birdcage, the Tipo 61 named after its frame of some two hundred small welded tubes, here with a coupé body by Drogo, and a Tipo 63. Maserati built motorcycles too, and three of them have their place among the cars. Cars leave on loan, to Maserati and to exhibitions, and the floor changes as they come and go.
It is a museum that nearly became an auction catalogue. Maserati’s own cars, shown at its works for three decades, were consigned to a London saleroom, and it took a minister and a mayor to look for a buyer, and a man from Pozza di Maranello to be one.
It is also a story told in Modena’s own trades: a welder from its workshops, a machine that packed its stickers, a farm that made its cheese. The trident came last, and stayed.
And for almost thirty years, the way to Maserati’s history led past the cows.
Visitor Experience
The collection stands on Via dell’Aeroporto at Marzaglia, in a hangar of the family’s airfield, dressed in Maserati blue.
Entry is by ticket, booked online, and groups can book a guided visit.
Book ahead and give the cars a morning. Maranello lies 16 kilometres away, and the afternoon can belong to Ferrari.
Climate
| Month | High °C | Low °C | Rainfall mm | Rainy days | Daylight h |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 8° | 0° | 58 | 8 | 9.3 |
| February | 10° | 0° | 74 | 9 | 10.5 |
| March | 14° | 3° | 76 | 9 | 12.0 |
| April | 18° | 7° | 94 | 12 | 13.5 |
| May | 22° | 11° | 97 | 11 | 14.8 |
| June | 27° | 16° | 72 | 9 | 15.5 |
| July | 30° | 18° | 54 | 7 | 15.2 |
| August | 29° | 18° | 65 | 9 | 14.0 |
| September | 24° | 14° | 88 | 9 | 12.5 |
| October | 18° | 10° | 95 | 10 | 11.0 |
| November | 12° | 5° | 107 | 11 | 9.6 |
| December | 8° | 1° | 80 | 9 | 8.9 |
Monthly averages for Modena, IT, 1991–2020.
Generated using Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026 (CC BY 4.0).
Neither the European Commission nor ECMWF is responsible for any use that may be made of the Copernicus information or data it contains.
Location
The collection stands at Marzaglia, on the plain west of Modena, where the city’s airfield and its circuit share the fields. Modena lies 13 kilometres away by road, Reggio Emilia 20, Bologna 57 and its airport 53, and Milan 176 to the north-west. The nearest railway station is at Rubiera, across the Secchia, 6 kilometres away.
Around it lies the Motor Valley. Modena’s circuit is 3 kilometres away by road; Maserati’s works on Viale Ciro Menotti, where the cars stood from 1965, and the Enzo Ferrari Museum nearby are both 15; the Ferrari Museum in Maranello is 16, the Horacio Pagani Museum at San Cesario sul Panaro 26, and the Automobili Lamborghini Museum at Sant’Agata Bolognese 33. Luciano Pavarotti’s house museum is 11 kilometres away, and Imola, whose circuit carries the names of Enzo and Dino Ferrari, lies 98 kilometres to the south-east.
Address
140 Via dell'Aeroporto
41123 Modena
Provincia di Modena, Emilia-Romagna
Italy
Website