Effective January 1st, 2003 Ferrari’s German network of 24 authorized dealerships
was expanded by one franchise: Thomas Sportwagen Ltd. of Radebeul near Dresden
has become the first authorized Ferrari dealer in former East Germany (German
Democratic Republic) some twelve years after the German reunification in October of
1990. The official inauguration of the new dealership took place on January 24th,
2003.
Germany’s youngest franchised Ferrari dealer is female: Sibylle
Thomas-Göbelbecker is the patron of the newly founded company Thomas
Sportwagen Ltd. The successful businesswoman, aged 32, has realised her lifetime
dream by setting up her own Ferrari dealership. ”As long as I can recall, I have been
crazy for fast sports cars.” states Sibylle Thomas-Göbelbecker and continues: ”First of
all, I fell in love with the dream cars from Maranello.”
Her father, Lothar Thomas, who has been a long-time Bugatti owner and who
competed in saloon car races in the German Democratic Republic back in the
1970’s, driving a Skoda 130 RS, triggered her affection for sporty motorcars. In the
late 1970’s and early 1980’s, young Sibylle accompanied her father to various races
in several countries of the Eastern Bloc. At an event in Brno (then Czechoslovakia,
today Czech Republic) she saw several Ferrari in real life for the first time: These
were owned by competitors from Western European countries who took part in the
motor sport event and who had left their road cars in the paddock or in the visitors’ car
park. That was when Sibylle Thomas-Göbelbecker made up her mind to get one of
these once in the future.
Till 1989, the political conditions and the general circumstances limited Sibylle’s
automotive ambitions to intensive studies of West German car- and motor sport
magazines smuggled into East Germany by relatives and friends. But very shortly after
the political turn of tides in November of 1989, the situation changed when her father
founded a BMW dealership in Meissen near Dresden — when the German
reunification was still some months away! Sibylle Thomas-Göbelbecker took over as
general manager of the dealership in 1996. Two years earlier, she had had her first
test drive in a Ferrari at the wheel of a 348 spider. She later drove several F355s and
a 550 Maranello, all owned by friends and customers. In 1997, she plucked up some
courage and sent a letter to Ferrari Deutschland Ltd., the factory subsidiary German
importer. In this letter she promoted herself as suitable to set up the first official
Ferrari dealership in the Eastern part of the reunited Germany.
Although Ferrari Deutschland did react very quickly, it eventually took five years until an
agreement was made. Sibylle Thomas-Göbelbecker had decided to open a second
BMW dealership in a suburb of the capital of Saxony, Dresden. In 1997, Maserati had
been taken over by Ferrari, and this as traditional as prestigious marque provided a
background that made the financial aspects of the combined Ferrari and Maserati
dealership in former East Germany appear much more reasonable. On April 29, 2002
Sibylle Thomas-Göbelbecker and Ferrari Deutschland’s general manager Gianluca
Pazzaglini worked out a contract that turned the young businesswoman into the first
official Ferrari and Maserati dealer for the eastern states of the German Federal
Republic.
The exclusive Dresden suburb of Radebeul was chosen as the location of the new
dealership. Situated conveniently on the town’s main street and directly on Dresden’s
city limits, 2.2 million Euros were invested in a 1.300 square metre building. About
650 square metres are reserved for the sales of Ferrari and Maserati, which are
presented in an impressive showroom with a height of more than six metres. As the
first one in Germany, the new dealership features the latest elements of Ferrari’s and
Maserati’s new Corporate Identity design. Of a total of twelve employees, two are
dedicated exclusively to the service for the Italian marques while Sibylle
Thomas-Göbelbecker herself handles the sales.
About 350 Ferrari are currently registered for road use in the Eastern part of Germany,
60 of these in Saxony. Sibylle Thomas-Göbelbecker plans to expand these figures
remarkably by offering an interesting range of new and used cars. We wish her all the
best!
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