#396: The Obsession of Enzo Ferrari

I've read hundreds of thousands of words about Enzo Ferrari. For this episode I distilled down his most important ideas into 1 hour. Ferrari was truly one of history's greatest obsessives.

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Sources:

The Terrible Joys of Enzo Ferrari by Winthrop Sargeant. Published in The New Yorker January 7th 1966.

The Story of Ferrari by Stuart Codling

Enzo Ferrari: Power, Politics and the Making of an Automobile Empire  by Luca Dal Monte

Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine by Brock Yates

Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans by A.J. Baime

Selected highlights:

1. He who travels fast, carries little.

2. All masterpieces bespeaks the character of its creator

3. "When the driver steps on the gas I want him to shit his pants."

4. It is obvious that a Ferrari is the product of a sort of automotive watch-maker.

5. Ferrari has never taken a vacation in his life.

6. Racing is a profession for men who do not wish to die in bed.

7. If there was one essential quality about the man it was his ironbound tenacity, his fierce devotion to the single cause of winning automobile races with cars bearing his name. From 1930 onward, for nearly sixty years, hardly a day passed when this thought was not foremost in his mind. Win or lose, he unfailingly answered the bell. In that sense his devotion to his own self-described mission was without precedent. For that alone he towered over his peers.

8. “I was back where I had started. No money, no experience, limited education. All I had was a passion to get somewhere.”

9. Ferrari had two fundamental talents. He was an agitator of men and he was an absolute marketing genius.

10. "A Ferrari must be desired. It cannot and must not be perceived as something that is immediately available; otherwise, the dream is gone."

11. "I have never considered myself a designer or an inventor, but only one who gets things moving and keeps them running. My innate talent was for stirring up men."

12. Enzo Ferrari was the consummate manager of men— not docile, soft men, but proud, fiercely competitive, egocentric men.

13. He was a pathological competitor. A man with a diamond-hard will to win at all costs.

14. When asked how he wanted to be remembered, he replied: "As someone who dreamt of becoming Ferrari."

15. Ferrari was animated by an extraordinary passion that led him to build a product with no equal.

16. "I had the stubborn determination to capture the trust of those who work with me."

17. “I should not have married because a man dominated by a passion such as mine, can hardly divide himself in half and be a good husband. If I had listened to my wife, I would have been a clerk in a bus company.”

18. He understood that showmanship is salesmanship.

19. They were cars built by Italian artisans, every detail down to the steering wheel handcrafted using some of the same methods used to make Roman suits of armor and the royal carriages of the ancient kingdoms.

20. When asked about the root of his mania, his obsession with victory, Ferrari said, "Everything that I've  done, I did because I couldn't do anything less. One day I want to build a car that's faster than all of them, and then I want to die."