LA PRIMA CORSA DI ENZO FERRARI

Twenty never-before-seen photos of Enzo Ferrari as he witnesses the testing of his first car as a constructor, over a hundred of other drivers from the 1940s.

Hundreds of books have been written about Ferrari's life and his victories. However, there is a period that has remained hidden, forgotten, never revealed: the period when Ferrari that could not be called Ferrari ran his first race. That was the 1940 Mille Miglia and at the wheel of the first car built by the Drake, the Auto Avio 815, was his friend Lotario Rangoni Machiavelli, the "flying marquis" a nobleman who had speed in his veins. The life of Rangoni was short, but unrepeatable: he was a racing driver and aviator, travelled the world and raced the "Mille Miglia di terra e di cielo".

Hundreds of previously unpublished photos of the two personalities and other protagonists such as Nuvolari, Stanguellini and Ascari complete the book, retracing two existences that were as different as they were exceptional, portraying the extraordinary meeting and friendship that united them and led them to live an extraordinary adventure side by side.

Enzo Ferrari and the nobleman faced the historic Mille Miglia of 1940 together, which would give rise to a legend that has no end, indeed it is nourished day after day. After more than seventy years, that period is finally told here, with all the enthralling background that only the light of the dawn of the Myth can shine.

Lotario Rangoni Machiavelli could not have imagined it, nevertheless his name was the one that ‘opened’ the list of drivers chosen by Enzo Ferrari. After him followed Ascari and Fangio, Phil Hill and John Surtees, Niki Lauda and Gilles Villeneuve, Alboreto and Berger, Schumacher and Alonso. This book highlights a story that needed to be told and relived. At the dawn of a Myth, and what a Myth, there was the Marquis, protagonist of an adventure: existential and sporting, that should not be forgotten.

Many are the mysteries unveiled in the book relating to the protagonists and their cars, and many are unresolved, leaving open a story that perhaps only time will fully clarify…

La prima corsa di Enzo Ferrari. La straordinaria avventura del Drake e del marchese Lotario Rangoni Machiavelli features 192 pages. Text in Italian.