A superb and rare photo, made from what we believe is the original
negative, of the amazing Enzo Ferrari
(right, next to the car), the founder of the Scuderia Ferrari Grand Prix motor racing team, and
subsequently of the Ferrari
car manufacturer, and Tazio Nuvolari, member of the Suderia Ferrari racing team,
sitting on his Scuderia Ferrari Alfa Romeo racing car, shortly
after scoring yet another racing victory in 1930.
Tazio Nuvolari was Italy’s most
famous and most gifted racer at the time, excelling both on four and two
wheels! He was born in 1892. His famous nickname was “Il Mantovano Volante” (The Flying Mantuan). He was the 1932
European Champion in Grand Prix motor racing. Nuvolari started out in
motorcycle racing in 1920 at the age of 27. From then until the end of 1930, he
competed both in motorcycle racing and in automobile racing. For 1931, he
decided to concentrate fully on racing cars and agreed to race for Alfa Romeo's
factory team, Alfa Corse. In 1932 he took two wins and a second place in the
three European Championship Grands Prix, winning him the title. He won four
other Grands Prix including a second Targa Florio
and the Monaco Grand Prix. After Alfa Romeo officially left Grand Prix racing,
Nuvolari stayed on with Scuderia Ferrari who ran the Alfa Romeo cars on a
semi-official basis. During 1933, Nuvolari left the team for Maserati after
becoming frustrated with the Alfa Romeo's performance. At the end of 1934,
Maserati pulled out of Grand Prix racing and Nuvolari returned to Ferrari, who
were reluctant to take him back, but were persuaded by the Italian prime
minister. The relationship with Ferrari turned sour during 1937, and Nuvolari
raced an Auto Union as a one-off in the Swiss Grand Prix that year before
agreeing to race for them for the 1938 season. Nuvolari remained at Auto Union
until Grand Prix racing was put on hiatus by World War II. Upon his return to
racing after the war, he was 54 and suffering from ill health. His final race,
in 1950, saw him finish first in class and fifth overall.
Enzo
Anselmo Ferrari was born in the Italian city of Modena in 1898, Enzo
Ferrari grew up with little formal education but a strong desire to race cars.
During World War I he was a mule-shoer in the Italian Army. His father, Alfredo, died in 1916 as a result of a widespread
Italian flu outbreak. Ferrari became sick himself and was consequently
discharged from Italian service. Upon returning home he found that the family
firm had collapsed. Having no other job prospects he sought unsuccessfully to
find work at FIAT and eventually settled for a job at a smaller car company
called CMN redesigning used truck bodies into small passenger cars. He took up
racing in 1919 on the CMN team, but had little initial success. He left CMN in
1920 to work at Alfa Romeo and racing their cars in local races he had more
success. In 1923, racing in Ravenna, he acquired the Prancing Horse badge which
decorated the fuselage of Francesco Baracca's (Italy's leading ace of WWI) SPAD
fighter, given from his mother, taken from the wreckage of the plane after his
mysterious death. This icon would have to wait until 1932 to be displayed on a
racing car. In 1924 he won the Coppa
Acerbo at Pescara. His successes in local races
encouraged Alfa to offer him a chance of much more prestigious competition.
Ferrari turned this opportunity down and did not race again until 1927. He
continued to work directly for Alfa Romeo until 1929 before starting Scuderia
Ferrari as the racing team for Alfa.
Ferrari managed the development of the factory Alfa
cars, and built up a team of over forty drivers, including Giuseppe Campari and Tazio Nuvolari.
Ferrari himself continued racing until the birth of his first son in 1932
(Alfredo Ferrari, known as Dino, who died in 1956). The support of Alfa Romeo
lasted until 1933 when financial constraints made Alfa withdraw. Only at the
intervention of Pirelli did Ferrari receive any cars at all. Despite the
quality of the Scuderia drivers the company won few victories (1935 in Germany by
Nuvolari was a notable exception). Auto Union
and Mercedes dominated the era. In 1937 Alfa took control of its racing efforts
again and again, reducing Ferrari to Director of Sports under Alfa's
engineering director. Ferrari soon left, but a contract clause restricted him
from racing or designing for four years.
He set up Auto-Avio Costruzioni, a company supplying
parts to other racing teams. But in the Mille
Miglia of 1940 the company manufactured two cars to
compete, driven by Alberto Ascari and Lotario
Rangoni. During World War II his
firm was involved in war production and following bombing relocated from Modena to Maranello. It
was not until after World War II that Ferrari sought to shed his fascist
reputation and make cars bearing his name, founding today's Ferrari S.p.A. in
1947. The first open-wheeled race was in Turin
in 1948 and the first victory came later in the year in Lago di Garda.
Ferrari participated in the Formula 1 World Championship since its introduction
in 1950 but the first victory was not until the British Grand Prix of 1951. The
first championship came in 1952–53, when the Formula One season was raced with
Formula Two cars. The company also sold production sports cars in order to
finance the racing endeavours not only in Grand Prix but also in events such as
the Mille Miglia and Le Mans. Indeed many of the firm's greatest
victories came at Le Mans (14 victories, including six in a row 1960–65) rather
than in Grand Prix, certainly the company was more involved there than in
Formula One during the 1950s and 1960s despite the successes of Juan-Manuel
Fangio (1956), Mike Hawthorn (1958), Phil Hill (1961) and John Surtees (1964).
In the 1960s the problems of reduced demand and inadequate financing forced
Ferrari to allow Fiat to take a stake in the company. Ferrari had offered Ford the opportunity to buy the firm in 1963 for US$18
million but, late in negotiations, Ferrari withdrew. This decision triggered
the Ford Motor Company's decision to launch a serious European sports car
racing program. The company became joint-stock and Fiat took a small share in
1965 and then in 1969 they increased their holding to 50% of the company. (In
1988 Fiat's holding was increased to 90%). Ferrari remained managing director
until 1971. Despite stepping down he remained an influence over the firm until
his death. The input of Fiat took some time to have effect. It was not until
1975 with Niki
Lauda that the firm won any
championships — the skill of the driver and the ability of the engine
overcoming the deficiencies of the chassis and aerodynamics. But after those
successes and the promise of Jody
Scheckter title in 1979, the
company's Formula One championship hopes fell into the doldrums. 1982 opened
with a strong car, the 126C2, world-class drivers, and promising results in the
early races. However, Gilles Villeneuve was killed in the 126C2 in May, and teammate Didier Pironi
had his career cut short in a violent end over end flip on the misty
backstraight at Hockenheim in August. Pironi was leading the driver's
championship at the time; he would lose the lead as he sat out the remaining
races. The team would not see championship glory again during Ferrari's
lifetime.
Enzo Ferrari died on August 14, 1988 in Modena at the age of 90. His death wasn't
made public until two days later, as by Enzo's request, to compensate late
registration of his birth. He died at the beginning of the dominance of the
McLaren Honda combination. The only race which McLaren did not win in 1988 was
the Italian Grand Prix. It was held just weeks after Ferrari's death, and,
fittingly, the result was a 1-2 finish for Ferrari, with Gerhard Berger leading
home Michele Alboreto. After Ferrari's death, the Scuderia Ferrari team has had
further success, notably with Michael Schumacher, Rubens Barrichello, Felipe Massa and Kimi Räikkönen
from 1996 onwards. He witnessed the launch of one of the greatest road cars
Ferrari F40 shortly before his death, which was dedicated as a symbol of his
achievements. In 2003 the first car to be named after him was launched in the
Enzo Ferrari.
Made a Cavaliere
del Lavoro in 1952, to add to his
honours of Cavaliere and Commendatore in the 1920s, Ferrari also received a
number of honorary degrees, the Hammarskjöld Prize in 1962, the Columbus Prize
in 1965, and the De Gasperi Award in 1987. In 1994, he was posthumously inducted
into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame. After the death of his son Alfredo ("Dino"), Ferrari wore his now
iconic sunglasses almost every day to honor his son. See photo…
Nuvolari is
seen sitting in an Alfa Romeo
racing car. The company that became Alfa Romeo was founded as Società Anonima
Italiana Darracq
(SAID) in 1906 by Cavaliere Ugo Stella, an aristocrat
from Milan, in
partnership with the French automobile firm of Alexandre Darracq.
The firm initially produced Darracq cars in Naples,
but after the partnership collapsed Stella and the
other Italian co-investors moved production to an idle Darracq factory in the Milan suburb of Portello,
and the company was renamed A.L.F.A.
(Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica
Automobili). The first non-Darracq
car produced by company was the 1910 24 HP, designed by Giuseppe Merosi.
Merosi would go on to design a series of new ALFA cars with more powerful engines (40-60 HP). ALFA also
ventured into motor racing, drivers Franchini and Ronzoni competing in the 1911
Targa Florio with two 24 HP models. However, the
onset of World War I halted automobile production at ALFA for three years.
1916 saw the company come under the direction of
Neapolitan entrepreneur Nicola
Romeo,
who converted the factory to produce military hardware for the Italian and
Allied war efforts. Munitions, aircraft engines and other components,
compressors and generators based on the company's existing car engines, and
heavy locomotives were produced in the factory during the war. When the war was
over, Romeo took complete
control of ALFA and car production
resumed in 1919. In
1920, the name of the company was changed to Alfa Romeo with the Torpedo 20-30 HP becoming the first car
to be badged as such. Their first success came in 1920 when Giuseppe Campari won at
Mugello and continued with second place in the Targa Florio
driven by Enzo Ferrari. Giuseppe Merosi continued
as head designer, and the company continued to produce solid road cars as well
as successful race cars (including the 40-60 HP and the RL Targa Florio).
In 1923 Vittorio Jano
was lured away from Fiat, partly thanks to the persuasion of a young Alfa
racing driver named Enzo Ferrari, to replace Merosi as chief designer at Alfa
Romeo. The first Alfa Romeo under Jano was the P2 Grand Prix car, which won
Alfa Romeo the inaugural world championship for Grand Prix cars in 1925. For
Alfa road cars Jano developed a series of small-to-medium-displacement 4, 6,
and 8 cylinder inline power plants based on the P2 unit that established the
classic architecture of Alfa engines, with light alloy construction,
hemispherical combustion chambers, centrally-located plugs, two rows of
overhead valves per cylinder bank and dual overhead cams. Jano's designs proved
to be both reliable and powerful.
Enzo
Ferrari proved to be a better team manager than driver, and
when the factory team was privatised, it then became Scuderia Ferrari. When Ferrari left Alfa Romeo, he went on
to build his own cars. Tazio Nuvolari
often drove for Alfa, winning many races prior to WWII.
In 1928 Nicola Romeo
left, with Alfa going broke after defense contracts ended, and in the end of
1932 Alfa Romeo was rescued by the government, which then had effective
control. Alfa became an instrument of Mussolini's Italy, a
national emblem. During this period Alfa Romeo built bespoke vehicles for the
wealthy, with the bodies normally built by Touring of Milan or Pininfarina.
This was the era that peaked with the legendary Alfa Romeo 2900B Type 35 racers.
The Alfa factory (converted during wartime to the
production of Macchi C.202 Folgore engines) was bombed during World War II, and
struggled to return to profitability after the war. The luxury vehicles were
out. Smaller mass-produced vehicles began to be produced in Alfa's factories
beginning with the 1954 model year, with the introduction of the Giulietta
series of berline (saloons/sedans), coupes and open two-seaters. All three
varieties shared what would become the classic Alfa Romeo Twin Cam engine, initially
in 1300cc form. This engine would eventually be enlarged to just under 2 liters (1962cc) and
would remain in production through 1995.
This is a very nice and very rare photo that reflects a wonderful era of
Ferrari ‘s and automotive history in a wonderful way. This is your rare chance to own this
photo, therefore it is printed in a nice large format of ca. 8" x 9"
(ca. 20 x 23 cm). It makes it perfectly suitable for framing.