The lady and the Ferrari V12

In reading Richard Williams' biography of Enzo Ferrari I came across the following story which I thought might interest F-chatters, esp. fans of the V12s.

It seems that in 1932 team Scuderia Ferrari hired a gal named Baroness Maria Antonietta Avanzo to drive for them. She was the most famous Italian woman racing driver of the era (here she is powdering her nose http://www.alfasport.net/webPage/View.asp?id=226). She entered the Mille Miglia but did not finish. But the story goes that she made her start in motor racing with a 12 cylinder Packard, which she took to a sand race event on a beach in Denmark. During the race, the car caught fire and the Baroness drove it into the sea to put out the flames (drivers did stuff like that in those days). Disgusted, she emerged from the surf and grumbled that she would rather have a Fiat. Famous driver Antonia Ascari, who like Enzo was working for Alfa at the time, overheard this. Upon the Baroness's return home she found a bright red Fiat awaiting her. Ascari got the Packard V12 which was repaired and put back into use. Whenever Enzo saw this car, he later said, the sound so intrigued him that it emerged as a source of inspiration when the time came for him to commission a new engine to help launch his new company. The rest is history.

Fast forward 80 years and we have the FF and F12, perhaps thanks to the American Packard and an Italian woman race driver of the 20s and 30s.

 

Must have started somewhere LOL

 

Neither did I. According to this Wiki entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V12_engine the Packard 'twin six' of 1916 was the first roadgoing V12.