Enzo Ferrari

The 14th of August is the date Enzo Ferrari died in 1988. His life makes an interesting story which I have read a couple of times courtesy of the Primary Health management team of the Canterbury Area Health Board. I had facilitated a strategic planning workshop over a couple of days at the Hamner Springs Hospital. Hardly celubrious but practical. As a thank you they gave me some book vouchers which I used to buy the Broch Yates book, 'Enzo Ferrari: The Man, the Cars, the Races, the Machine'. The team signed the book with some appreciative inscriptions - that was 1991.

Enzo fascinated me, I wondered how I would have managed working with such a man. It seems he had more of an affinity with the mechanics than with the drivers and had a fetish for cleanliness. He would be in the workshops every evening at 5pm, 'like clockwork'. Every tool had to be clean and in place before the staff could go home.

In the earlier days the Ferrari road cars were little more than detuned race machines. Apparently they were pretty awful to drive unless on open roads and at full throttle. They boiled over in city driving. There is a lovely story of how an american who was selling the cars in California went to Modena to complain that these status cars could not be driven in Los Angeles traffic without over-heating. Ferrari was shocked and summoned one of their latest cars and took the american for a drive through the narrow and winding streets. Ferrari kept an eye on the temperature gauge. As it started to climb, Ferrari would stop and point out some famous landmark or stop by a cafe.

The late '50s saw the introduction of the new formula two cars referred to as a rear engine (in reality more mid-engine). Although new drivers such as Bruce McLaren adopted the radical new engines and started to dominate, Enzo Ferrari remained distainful, summarily dismissing them as 'oxen pulling the cart'.

Ferrari himself was a workaholic, with no time taken off for weekends and holidays, and there was extreme pressure on his senior staffers to be the same.

In the early 60's Ferrari was negotiating to sell to Ford. After discussions over time the deal was to be finalised between Ferrari and Donald Frey. Ferrari opened by asking Frey, "if I wish to enter cars at Indianapolis and you do not wish me to enter cars at Indianapolis, do we go or do we not go?" Apparently Frey responded without hesitation, "You do not go." Ferrari stood up and said, "It was nice to know you." And that was the end of the negotiation.