Some Ferraris run on alcohol - so you could say this unique 'Ferrari' Segway PT runs on wine

What started off as a running gag has fermented into a productivity booster at Wineworks - one of New Zealand's largest contract wine making and bottling businesses.

Like all great wines and all great wine stories, it started years ago. Each year a certain warehouse manager would submit a written requisition request for a Ferrari to use to get around their large, sprawling site in Blenheim, New Zealand.

Who wouldn't want a Ferrari to get around at work?

After many years of refusing this request, management at Wineworks decided it would be fun to commission Segway NZ to create a custom 'Ferrari' Segway i2 SE - while at the same time knowing a Segway PT deployed in the workplace would be a true productivity-improving tool. Even the cartons containing the first generation of Segway PTs were emblazoned with “Cover more ground. Be more productive. Move more intelligently."

And so, for the last decade or so the production staff and management staff at Wineworks have been using their special Segway PT to ride within and between the giant warehouses at their facility.

Recently, they shipped their 'Ferrari' up to Segway NZ for its first-ever service. How's that for proof of incredible reliability?

This has reminded us to tell the story of how their custom Segway PT came to be.

Wineworks has joined many other top-performing NZ companies who have Segway PTs deployed to improve productivity and efficiency. The mail must get through! Time is money! And time (and wine) wait for no one....even if (most) wine improves with a bit of waiting.

First, here's Wineworks story (from their website):

WineWorks began in 1995 to provide key bottling infrastructure for wineries. In the following 25 years we’ve grown with our winery customers, to ensure we have capacity for our customers in the New Zealand wine industry.

We’ve made (and continue to make) big investments in world-class technology, machinery and facilities, and of course our people.

Bottling, labelling, storage and distribution are highly specialised processes. WineWorks are industry experts. We have the expertise, experience and, coupled with our enthusiastic application of what we’ve learnt through Lean Manufacturing, make it easy for you.

For our customers, we see ourselves as the ‘gearbox’ of your business – we look after the ‘industrial’ side of bottling wine, and then store and dispatch it. This enables you to do what you do best – grow and market great New Zealand wines.

And now, here's how we made their custom Ferrari Segway PT.

The Wineworks 'Ferrari' Segway i2 SE was built in Auckland using genuine Ferrari badges purchased by Philip Bendall at a Ferrari Store during a visit to Europe in 2008, along with the exceptional painting and detailing skills of Gt Refinishers, Penrose (Auckland). We sought out Gt Refinishers for to their award-winning work, plus the enthusiasm they brought to this unique little job. They paid very careful attention to detail, copying the key Ferrari elements across from Philip's own genuine Ferrari Segway i2 across to the redesigned i2 SE model. Only 40 units of official 'Ferrari Edition' Segway PTs were made - keep reading to learn more below.

Since creating the Wineworks one-off 'Ferrari', Gt Refinishers have gone on to create a one-off Sistema Segway PT for the founders of that company. It was custom painted in iconic 'Sistema Blue' colour and finished with Sistema badges, and fitted Segway side cargo cases.

In 2008 Segway, Inc. produced a very, very limited run of just 40 official Ferrari Segway PTs.

Forty units of White coloured Segway i2 models were sent to Ferrari's factory in Maranello, Italy, where each was hand-crafted into official 'Ferrari Edition' Segway PTs. Painted in "Ferrari Red" and leaving a white stripe revealed, these PTs also featured real Ferrari emblems plus a custom made, pigskin front bag emblazoned with the Ferrari logo.

Out of these 40 units, just two examples reached New Zealand. One is on display at Segway New Zealand (and is occasionally shown off at events such as Big Boys Toys and Speedshow), and the other is a prized possession of a well-known Ferrari collector in Auckland.

According to Philip Bendall: "As far as I know, there are no other examples of offical Ferrari Segway PTs in the Southern Hemisphere. Of the 40 units produced, movie star and celebrity Jackie Chan purchased 10 units, and these initially all went into Hong Kong. I purchased two, leaving just 28 units in the hands of various collectors spread elsewhere around the world.

"I was having dinner at Jackie's amazing house in Kowloon (Hong Kong), I think this was in 2011 or 2012, and he reminded me how his Ferrari and his 'White Dragon' custom Segway PTs are two of his favourite things in particular. I think it fair to say he really loves Segway PTs in general.

"For about a decade, starting in 2005, Jackie and my friend Matt McGuire had a business called JCAM, the official distributor of Segway products across much of South East Asia for almost a decade. Jackie was a tireless promoter of the Segway PT across the region, including as a founding shareholder of Gogreen Segway Tours based out of Singapore.

Another of Jackie's favourite things was the signed photo of Peter Jackson that I had got for him a couple of years earlier. He has this entire wall in his office filled with autographed photos of all the movie stars and directors he's worked with, or in some cases those who he would love to work with in the future. In return, he signed a sign a Sport Red fender from a first-generation Segway HT i180 for me. A few years later Weird Al Yankovic signed one for me too, because I helped him keep it White and Nerdy during one of his NZ tours - for photo of that fender see our earlier article here (a star-packed post that also includes Segway stories about Justine Bieber, Avril Lavigne, Susan Sarandon, Peter Gabriel, Peter Garrett, Michael Cera, Kardashian Kylie Jenner, and Emmy winner Victor Miller of Friday 13th and Segway Polo fame)."

At Segway NZ we love doing one-off custom jobs. No job is too big, and no job is too small, as they say...

For example, one time we made an 'Aston Martin' branded Segway PT for a character dressed as James Bond to ride on into a Christmas staff party at Kiwi retail giant The Warehouse. There wasn't much budget behind that particular job, so we used a can of silver-grey spray paint on the PT to give it the necessary hint of transformation into a DB-5, printed out some badges on a printer and stuck 'em on with double-sided tape!

And then there was that other time an ostrich photo-bombed a photoshoot...