Customer Reviews

Enzo Ferrari: The Man, The Cars, The Races, The Machine

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this is the most comprehensive book on the subject that i have read. it is a cross-section of the history, and growth of his dynamic company. a must read for anyone interested in ferrari, and formula one racing.

Credit to Brock Yates for this one (and I am not usually his biggest fan). Blindly adoring Ferrari fans might object to the presentation of Mr. Ferrari as considerably less than a saint, but this is not a hatchet job. Yates has painstakingly researched the life of a talented and often ruthless man who was above all (and by his own admission) a master of manipulation--manipulation of people and images. Ferrari was an energetic and talented individualist who overcame humble origins to become a titan of sport and industry, and who carefully created a mystique that often contradicts reality. Without denigrating Ferrari's triumphs and accomplishments, Yates also describes the man's frequent resistance to necessary technological change (contrary to the myth of Ferrari as a cutting-edge company), his contempt for customers, his ruthlessness and stinginess with his personnel, and his often sordid personal life. Some reviewers have objected that the depiction of Ferrari as being peripherally involved with the Fascists and the Mafia is farfetched, but this objection ignores the realities of doing business on a sizable scale in the Italy of Enzo Ferrari's time. Ferrari was not a criminal and not a political man in any partisan way, but he did what he had to do in order to keep the business running--not always smoothly. As is usually the case, the truth is more interesting than a "lives of the saints" approach to a major figure from the overlapping worlds of sports and industry. Brock Yates isn't against Enzo Ferrari, but I think he is against the sort of thing I once witnessed at a gathering of American Formula One fans: Derek Bell, who spent one rather unsuccessful season with Ferrari early in his very long career before going on to win LeMans five times in other makes of car, was there as a guest speaker, and I heard the man next to me say to his wife, "Look, honey! That's Derek Bell! He drove for Ferrari!" If your outlook is similar to that man's, you won't like this book. If it isn't, you probably will.

this is the best of the 4 bio's I have read about Enzo Ferrari. This is a warts and all portrayal of a man all of us tifosi have come to love, read it.

This book goes into viewing not only the glamorous part of the commendattore's life, but mostly the darker side.
Mr Yates takes a very interesting position, he gives the impression that dislikes italians and praises germans, english and americans in the auto industry, and that this book was written to expose the "dark-side" of Ferrari.
The linking of Enzo Ferrari to the Mafia and to the Fascist governments seems a little far fetched.

All in all I believe this book was written to discredit Ferrari and all the history and triumph behind them.