[14 agosto 1988-2022] Mid-August 1988, it is 11 in the morning, the phone rings. It’s Gerhard Berger: “But is Ferrari really dead? I heard the news on the radio, I didn’t understand Italian well, do you know something more?“. It was true.
The funeral had been held the same morning, with the sun still rising. Few people, besides family members: those that Enzo Ferrari had listed on a sheet of paper left in the drawer of the nightstand. The last of him in fact. More mocking than funereal, considering a character who all his life had done nothing but write down, delete, add, draw lines on one name or the other, make lists of good and bad. And always with purple ink, whether it be a stylus pen, a ballpoint pen or a felt-tip pen. One of the countless charms of a man beyond time, capable of creating a miracle which is before the eyes of all. So much so that it even becomes superfluous to recall its prodigies, merits, legends.
THE HOLIDAYS
Ferrari went away silently, while Italy consumed the ritual of the holidays. She too had made them, in passing, in the villa in Viserba. But he hated them. Every now and then, in the height of summer, she would call in a hollow voice and say amused: “I feel the sea, are you on vacation? Well, me too: I’m on vacation in Fiorano, why don’t you come to see me?“. Fiorano was the holiday resort beyond the Abetone state road. On the one hand Maranello and the factory, on the other Fiorano with the track, the racing department. It was here that he often tortured the riders by forcing them to try in mid-August, with the excuse that then in September there was Monza and you couldn’t make a bad impression. In reality he was looking for company: the cars that turned in the heat (while he, sitting on a chair with his right trousers raised up to the knee due to an ancient rheumatism, looked casually) and the pilots. To whom, at the end of the afternoon, when they were exhausted by the kilometers, he extracted confidences not only technical but of loves and gossip: in the distance, the music of the Maranello amusement park, as in a Piavoli film.
MONEY
What Enzo Ferrari has left is today’s racing world. As such. Imbued with money, contradictions, hidden events. Isn’t it true that only a few weeks ago all the manufacturers met in Maranello to lay the foundations for the economic agreement that will be valid between now and 2012? A renewal. Along the lines of the one drawn up by Enzo Ferrari and that the other teams, with Ecclestone in the lead, signed, again in Maranello, in 1981. A draft not too far from the one with which, at the end of the 1920s, Ferrari gave life to its own Scuderia with which riders of the caliber of Nuvolari, Varzi, Wimille and many others competed. The cars were from Alfa Romeo, a brand that Enzo Ferrari had involved in the company capital together with Pirelli. And then there were the sponsors, who put the writing on the trucks but who could publicly exploit the victories. One of these was Shell, which in 1932 paid Ferrari one million and 200 thousand lire a year, equivalent to over 10 million euros today: nothing has changed.
PININ FLOUR
Great businessman-communicator, enormous charisma, flair for people. Ferrari became Ferrari without ever having traveled, except for a few sporadic trips outside the Emilian kingdom. When he made an agreement with Pinin Farina, who would later design some of his most famous GTs, they met in a trattoria near Piacenza. Neither, out of pride, had wanted to go as far as the other’s home.
THE COMPANY FAMILY
Ferrari ran the company as a family, enriched with training schools, a canteen, a bank with subsidies for employees. And in the most dramatic cases where the sickness fund did not arrive, his intervention was not long in coming. This is why he never went on strike. There was an attempt: the workers lined up outside the entrance with banners. He arrived, got out of the car, greeted the leader of the trade unionists and said: “You are right, it is your right to go on strike, in a sense I am with you. But I work today because I have to think of you too, of your families. By the way, I heard your son was sick, is it better now?“. She greeted and entered. The others followed him in silence.
THE WORLD
Ferrari never wanted to create a system: he was the system. And although he has never moved from Maranello, it was the world that took the exam in front of his desk. Politicians, actors, artists, singers, writers. Lastly, Pope John Paul II, two months before his death. But there was no meeting: Ferrari, who was already ill, spoke to the pontiff on the phone. Perhaps it was in those moments of mystery that he found his faith again. In February 1988 there was the factory party for his 90th birthday, with 1,800 employees. He called it “the best gift of my long life“.
PERTINI
A lonely, histrionic, unpredictable, sarcastic man. When President Pertini went to visit him, he had been waiting at the window for half an hour. When the presidential blue car appeared, Ferrari made a grimace of annoyance and, turning to a collaborator who at first did not understand, he had a joke about him: “You see, old age hit me in the legs, he took his head“. Then he went to receive the illustrious guest with a hug, whose fault had been that of showing up at Maranello with a Maserati, a brand that Ferrari hated for old racing reasons. Now that Ferrari is gone, the Maserati belongs to Ferrari. One thing he would have liked, he who had used and tamed partners like Alfa Romeo, Lancia, Fiat. But that’s another story.
Pino Allievi
The Gazzetta dello Sport, August 14, 2008
#Enzo #Ferrari #Ferragosto #FormulaPassion.it