A BRILLIANT PORTRAIT OF AN AUTOMOTIVE LEGEND

This landmark book, a ten-year project for celebrated automotive author Doug Nye, presents the life of Enzo Ferrari in fabulously rich detail, complete with the most lavish array of photographs of the great man ever assembled in one volume. Alongside the author’s erudite and authoritative text, over 400 images feature every aspect of Enzo Ferrari’s long life, from childhood to his final days. We see him in his formative years as a racing driver, including at the wheel of fearsome Alfa Romeos in the 1920s in major events such as the Targa Florio. We see him as a team manager, running Alfa Romeos in the 1930s with his Scuderia Ferrari and enjoying considerable success with supreme racers like Tazio Nuvolari. We see him post-war presiding over his own Ferrari company in all sorts of settings: his Maranello factory, trackside when testing, in the pits when racing, with design, engineering and technical staff, and, of course, with his drivers, including World Champions Alberto Ascari, Juan Manuel Fangio, Mike Hawthorn, Phil Hill, John Surtees, Niki Lauda and Jody Scheckter. This book places Enzo Ferrari in his true perspective as a titan of the 20th century.

• Early years: aftermath of the Great War, budding racing driver and Alfa Romeo employee, then emerging as shrewd businessman.

• Scuderia Ferrari: his own team, first racing Alfa Romeos for wealthy clients, then ‘quasi-works’ cars, achieving considerable success through the 1930s.

• Second World War: doing well from industrial production of machine tools — and surviving a contract assassination plan.

• Rapid emergence of his own Ferrari marque post-war: six consecutive Mille Miglia wins from 1948; first Le Mans win in 1949; double World Champions in 1952–53.

• All-round racer: at his autocratic and spectacular best through the pinnacle years in the 1950s and 1960s in Formula 1, Formula 2 and sports car racing — then rescue by Fiat from near bankruptcy.

• Advancing years: racing focuses on Formula 1 and road-car manufacture shifts from exotic boutique production to significant volume.

• Final years: on top of the world with new models, and even higher personal status as Italian elder statesman and national icon.