7 replies to this topic

[cabianca]

Much has been written about a meeting between Enzo Ferrari and Luigi Chinetti that supposedly happened at Ferrari's Modena facility on Christmas eve 1946. Without getting into the inaccuracies of most reports, I have a question about who was there. I have read or heard somewhere that Chinetti and Amédée Gordini made the trip together in Gordini's Traction Avant. I also remember mention of one or the other sitting on the bonnet of the car to get the traction necessary to get through some of the mountain passes. Does anyone have any information about this journey and if there were other members of the party. I would love to find a print reference to this incident, in any language.

Many thanks.

[312f1]

In a 1992 interview to Luca Delli Carri, Chinetti describes the meeting but there is no mention of anybody else being present. As to his journey from Paris to Modena, the only detail mentioned is that there was much snow, which delayed his arrival. 

[JB Miltonian]

The meeting between Chinetti and Ferrari is discussed in some detail in the Brock Yates book.  I wouldn't know about the inaccuracies....

[Cynic2]

The meeting between Chinetti and Ferrari is discussed in some detail in the Brock Yates book.  I wouldn't know about the inaccuracies....

 

Neither would Yates.

[cabianca]

The Yates account has some kernels of truth. However, the part about Chinetti convincing Ferrari to quit the machine tool business has to be inaccurate. Cortese, who both sold the machine tools for Ferrari and drove the first Ferrari to win a race has said that the old man told him to quit taking machine tool orders in November 1946, more than a month before Chinetti arrived in Modena for the Christmas eve meeting. Cortese was quoted as saying, "Only a fool would quit such a successful business." Yates does concede that the 125 program was underway. The fact is that the engine had already run on the test bed before Chinetti arrived. A car would be completed 3 months later. My guess would be that the conversation did cover the American market and the fact that not only had America not been bombed in the war, but many had made good money profiting from it. Chinetti already had an American client base to whom he had brokered cars, not to mention his French and British connections who he had dealt with before the war during his Alfa and Talbot days.

[312f1]

Yates' account of the meeting is probably based on Chinetti's point of view.

Chinetti himself in the interview I mentioned, repeats the same point, that it was himself who told Ferrari to drop the machine tools business.

His argument was that while in the US, he saw much more advanced machinery and Ferrari would be out of business soon if he continued, adding that he saw a market for expensive sports cars in the US market and he had the right connections to sell such cars.

[Arjan de Roos]

Ferrari once said that Chinetti was a man of little words. Not more than five words a year and that included "Merry Christmas". Bit off topic, but in the spirit of the season 

[Arjan de Roos]

I only know of a friend. Doubtful if it was Gordini. Why would he go there? Later no any connection with Ferrari than competition between them. Never any collaboration. Also never a reference by both men of a meeting in 1946. Maybe Coco can clarify.