FERRARI IS MAKING NEWS!

(FIRST SEMA SHOW NEWS POST BELOW!)
News doing with FERRARI to kick-off our all-new "Supercar" category! Seems a Los Angeles jury couldn't quite find it in their hearts to convict an ex-pat Swede (who has been arrested no less than 9 times in his homeland) for driving his (probably stolen) Enzo into a Pacific Coast Highway telephone pole at over 160 miles per hour (Can anyone say: "OJ"?), and Alcoa (Aluminum Corporation of America --- Oh, THAT'S what that means!) builds an all-new high-tech plant in Ferrari's Modena, IT hometown to supply body panels for new-car buyers ... and ... too-rich idiots who drive their Enzos into telephone poles ... Well, you get the idea ... Look! Up in the pole! It's a bird - It's a plane - It's SUPERCAR!!!

Jurors in the grand theft trial of Swedish bad boy Bo Stefan Eriksson could not reach a verdict and the judge just declared a mistrial. Prosecutors said they will try again, buoyed by the news that the jury had deadlocked 10-2 in favor of conviction.

Sadly, it's not true that one of the holdouts was a mystery juror with an accent known  only as Dietrich. But Malibu locals think they know where Eriksson came up with his story that a German named Dietrich was driving the Enzo Ferrari that crashed at high speed on Pacific Coast Highway in February. The Enzo had just rocketed past the local coffee hangout Diedrich's before wrecking at 160 miles an hour. Eriksson told the sheriff's that the driver ran up into the hills, setting off a big search. This was before "homeland security" got involved. Ah, memories.

(Photo by Hans Laetz, The Malibu Times --- For many years, geeky-guy Laetz was Assignment Editor at LA's bloodiest and most fun TV station, KTLA. I know because I reported on cars there for 10 years and won an Emmy in the process. Info from our friends at LAOBSERVED.com, THE site for you folks who like to keep up on the 'inside' happenings at the LA TIMES...).

AND ... From autoblog.com and windingroad.com ...

The aluminum-masters at Alcoa have just brought a new Ferrari-specific facility on-line in Modena. The new plant will make it easier for Alcoa to build various aluminum components and spaceframes for the Italian automaker, with whom it has been working since 1994. Up until the creation of the new facility, Alcoa disbursed its aluminum Ferrari componentry from plants in Germany, Hungary, and the Netherlands.

The company’s Modena move should make future projects easier to co-develop with Ferrari and improve overall efficiency. The new operation will employ 75 people, and replaces the company’s existing works in Ferrari’s Scaglietti Works.