9781422279564

I NT RODUC T I ON

T here is nothing like a Ferrari. Ever since these famed road cars and racing machines first came out of the Modena works in the late 1940s, they have evoked the passions of auto enthusiasts as no other marque ever has. The sights and sounds of a Ferrari, experienced first-hand, are provocation of the highest order. Sensuous body curves, a sonorous exhaust note, and giddily transcendent speed all blend together, likening the Ferrari encounter to a dream. The glorious history surrounding Ferrari feeds this passion as well, a histo- ry built on experience in racing. In Europe, no other sport, save for soccer, commands the dedicated attentions of the fan the way racing does. Rulers of the European states have on occasion exploited the hold racing has on the fan (the German government-backed Mercedes and Auto-Union Grand Prix teams of the late 1930s, for example), and racing cars served as rolling billboards for their national sponsors: green for English teams, silver for Germany, blue for France, white (with blue stripes) for the rare American entry, and red for Italy. As Ferrari’s Grand Prix and sports car racers hit the roads and circuits of Europe in the years following the Second World War, their success quickly charged the imagination and hopes of the Italian people. The devotion of these fans was so singular they soon gained their own sobriquet, Tifiosi. A fascinating consequence of this passion is the intimate association Ferrari has developed with the color red. One cannot find anywhere in popular culture a closer relationship between an inanimate object and a hue. To this day facto- ry-backed Ferrari race cars bear this color. When someone finally realizes their long-held Ferrari fantasy and orders a production car, he or she usually specifies a red model. Automobile magazine’s Jean Lindamood once pithily called a Ferrari “the reddest car available,” no matter what its color. What evokes these responses is nothing more than the magnificent vision of Enzo Ferrari. With his racing teams, his genius lay in marshaling the myriad of disparate resources needed to place his cars first at the finish line. His pro- duction automobiles were always the realization of his beliefs as to what the customer should have—never a mere marketing exercise. There is no car more individual than these magnificent marriages of alloy and steel bearing

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