Enzo's last ferrari?

Oh yes, I own a copy, it's a good read.......so is Cannonball........

I guess the trouble I have (and it's no big deal, it doesn't keep me up at night... we are just "chatting' here, right?) is all the "insight" he personally ascribes to Enzo's thoughts and motives...it's really hard to know such things, with certainty....

 

Yes, in many aspects I do believe what I cited. I have been studying Ferraris since the late 1960s and have been producing the Ferrari Market Letter since January 1976.

I my opinion there are three families of Ferraris:

1. Those that were produced, both road cars and racing cars, when Enzo Ferrari was solely in charge.

2. Those that were produced when Fiat was in charge of the production side of things and Ferrari was in charge of racing. This was the terms of the agreement reached with Fiat in 1969. Look at page 278 of Ferrari's book "Una Vita Per l'Automobile" where there is a picture of Enzo with the three men who "took charge of the Fiat-Ferrari operations." From that time on the top managers at Ferrari SpA were Fiat men, not Ferrari men. Ferrari may have had some input during this period but he was not in charge!

3. Those that have been produced since Ferrari died.

Of course there was some overlap. For instance, the Daytona and Dino were in the pipeline when Fiat bought in.

This is not to say the Ferraris produced since Fiat came on the scene, or since Enzo died, have not, in large part, been great automobiles. In many respects they are far better than those made while Enzo was alive, those worshiped by the dinosaurs. I can cite you many instances of mistakes made during the "glory days" of Enzo Ferrari.

Ciao,
Gerald Roush
Ferrari Market Letter

 

Well, I believe YOU then, as your thoughts would be more valid (to me) than Brock's...but I really meant no offense to him, either....

 

As I was around in the Ferrari world back in the 60s I can assure you that nobody then was questioning if the 4-cylinder and 6-cylinder (or the 8-cylinder) race cars were "real" Ferraris!

Were you aware of the fact that no World Champion driver won the title using a V-12-cylinder engine?
Alberto Ascari won twice using a 4-cylinder
Juan Manuel Fangio won using an 8-cylinder
Mike Hawthorn won using a 6-cylinder
Phil Hill won using a 6-cylinder
John Surtees won using an 8-cylinder
Niki Lauda won twice using a flat-12 (unless you cnsider this a 180-degree V-12)
Michael Schumacher won five times (four times with a 10-cylinder and once with an 8-cylinder)

No need to go into the many victories scored by similar-engined sports cars.

Ciao,
Gerald Roush
Ferrari Market Letter

 

The basis of your statement comes a little clearer, and I am a fan of the Ferrari market letter, so.....great job!

Just a few more things....

"took charge of the Fiat-Ferrari operations."

I take it that you take this to mean - Enzo Ferrari was no longer involved in the development of the road cars as a picture of these two guys with Enzo and the associated description constitutes some type of proof that what you're saying is true? I don't find that compelling, and I'll cite a counter example as evidence.

This comes from Marcello Gandini of Bertone (designed the Miura, Countache, X1/9, and oodles more) and.....the 308GT4.
Here's a quote from Mr. Gandini, and he is talking about Mr. Ferrari and the development of that car.....

"It was conceived under his initiative." "We prepared a mockup with pedals, four seats, and an engine. It could be made longer or shorter using a hydraulic pump so Ferrari himself could decide on the pedal's position and the interior space."

Likewise, here is a quote from Piero Ferrari regarding why the design was given to Bertone instead of Pinin'

"My father gave the project to Bertone because they had done the Fiat Dino 2+2.""The result was the Dino GT4. He gave to Pininfarina the two-seat car, and that was the 308 GTB."

So, Mr. Ferrari was not involved with the development of the road cars accept when it came to initiating the project to develop a new road car, which just happened to be their first mid-engined V8, and then choosing the pedal layout and the interior space of the car? Oh yes, and deciding which design house would get the project. So the REST was done by the Fiat guys......like....err...marketing? Shipping? Distribution? Surely Ferrari wasn't involved in that.

 

ABSOLUTELY: geesch. what is wrong with those people.

BTW, can anyone recommend the difinitive word/book on 6-cylyinder Mondials. Those engines are entirely fascinating. Their design and use is awsome. Been reading bits and pieces but would like the 'ultimate' book on them and the older 6cylinder engines. Latest issue of Cavallino has a great writeup.

thanks

rik

 

Good Post, Duane.

I guess that is what I had always read, that the drives around the Factory of completed mules or prototypes even of later production models (after 1969 certainly) was handled by Enzo, as "final approval for production" long after 1969 deal with FIAT..

But maybe that is the 'myth" Yates is discussing?

I thought he also had control of the "F40 Prototype" that stayed in the Factory Museum for so long, before being recently sold...the one with the five quarter panel accents slots, in lieu of the production four????

 

I really believe, like you said, that Yates' accounts are, 'highly conflationary' , in the least case. Ferrari's rather dismissive treatment of customers at times, such as one Feruccio Lambhorghini...."You may know how to build tractors, Lamborghini, but you do not know how to handle a Ferrari.,".....is well known. But some people claim that even that conversation never took place!!

Journalistic license is an insidious thing where creative license is taken with the erstwhile inner dialog of the individual in question. Making statements with regards to an entire company based on said supposed inner dialog is already in a state of sin, to say nothing of the veracity of the conclusions.

But....such is journalistic license, I suppose. I've seen interviews with Ferrari himself where he makes statements about 'the driver is 50% of the equation and the car is the other 50%' when others close to the source would say that Ferrari thought the car was the key, even to the extent of supposedly asking about the state of the car after a crash in which a driver was killed. That seems pretty reptilian, to say the least. But this man was bathed in death on all fronts. His brother, father, mother, son, and then all those aristocratic drivers in the 50's who bought, and ultimately died in, his cars. He was incessantly accused of being a murderer.

It surely must have taken an iron will to persist at what he did, let alone changing the face of racing and the sports car world. That's respectable....to say the very least. I say the man was intensely involved in every aspect of every aspect of his company until the day of his death, period.