Giuseppe Furmanik was of Polish descent and was born in Switzerland in 1903: he trained as an engineer and was co-designer of a parachute called the Salvator. In the early 1930s he had been an occasional racing driver, although he was better known for his speed record-setting activities using various Maseratis, his exploits presumably financed from patent royalties on his parachute designs. Acquainted with
Il Duce since the mid-1920s and
already the recipient of three gold medals for his efforts, in 1937 Furmanik succeeded Count Vicenzo Florio as president of the RACI's Commissione Sportiva Automobilistica Italiana, so he now represented the RACI at AIACR meetings as their delegate on the CSI: although the RACI still nominally controlled the Italian racing calendar via the CSAI the real power now lay with Furmanik, who had a foot in both camps.
Alongside Count Bonacossa, who ran motorcycle racing in Italy, he was therefore pretty much the Italian equivalent of Adolf Hühnlein.
The CSAI was re-formed (and reformed) in 1945 under Count 'Tonino' Brivio and a number of other pre-war drivers who were - to a greater or lesser extent - untainted by association with the Fascisti. Furmanik was - understandably - not involved.
Also in early 1945
Corriere dello Sport reported that Furmanik had donated a "substantial" amount of money to their fund for the reconstruction and international rehabilitation of Italian sport.
And then?
