The world's most famed maker of racing cars is a grizzled, 58-year-old Italian who flunked out of technical school, puts little faith in slide rules and has never seen his autos race. In the 16 years since one of his cars won the first race it had entered. Enzo Ferrari's speedsters have racked up more road and track victories than any other cars in the world. Last year Ferraris thundered first across the finish line in 93 races. This year they have won Grand Prix trophies from Buenos Aires to Sebring, Fla. Last fortnight for the first time, Ferraris captured the first five places in the trick)7, curve-filled Mille Miglia, which even for Italian drivers is the world's toughest open-road race.
But to Enzo Ferrari, the mere fact of victory is less vital than interpreting aright the lessons that the races burn into his automobiles. Says he: "The importance of a race is not so much who is the victor, but the technical results that show whether the engineer is on the right road and progressing." To make sure that he stays on the right road, Ferrari hustles his cars back to his Maranello factory after a race. There they are disassembled and minutely examined by their maker for flaws and hints on how to improve their performance.
Curves at 100. Through his intuition and endless inspection, Speed King Ferrari prevails as an individual against mass-production giants. His cars are high-strung, low-slung machines with the delicate balance of a watch and the stamina of a bull rhino. The 3.5-liter Ferrari that won the Mille Miglia is powered with a huge twelve-cylinder engine, the only V12 currently in production, which can push it smoothly along the straightaway at close to 190 m.p.h. The weight of engine and chassis is kept low in relation to the horsepower (about 6 Ibs. per h.p.). Thus the cars have tremendous pickup. The low center of gravity (and just enough weight to keep rear wheels from spinning) allows them to cling to murderous curves at 100 m.p.h.
A perfectionist who maintains his own foundry because he will not trust another maker's steel, Ferrari manages to communicate his sense of artistry to the 350 workers who turn out his cars and the stable of drivers who gun them to victory. Ferrari, who admits that "the results of a race are due only 50% to the car," splits prize money 50-50 with his drivers and (unlike most automakers) gives them a guaranteed minimum, win or lose, thus has his pick of the world's best drivers. He picks his pilots with the care he puts into tuning an engine, teams a cool, canny technician such as World Champion Juan Fangio with a hotspur such as Eugenio Castellotti, who won this year's Mille Miglia.