THE REALLY BIG SHOW
In 1963, World War II was yet to be a distant memory for nearly anyone alive. For those not having experienced it personally, Hollywood readily fulfilled the void with movie epics like "The Longest Day," released in late 1962. Indeed, in 1961, 1962 and 1963, a new "war" movie was released roughly every seventh week.
Europe as a whole had yet to rebound fully from WWII's nearly total devastation (which had a lot, if not nearly everything to do with the U.S. becoming an economic powerhouse in the 1950's and 1960's) and Germany in 1963 had yet to reach its halfway mark in that effort, not declaring the process completed until 1985.
What's WWII got to do with anything?
Well, besides "a whole bunch," sports car racing's birth in the U.S. is largely attributable to WWII's United Kingdom-based U.S. military personnel, most particularly of the Eighth Air Force, many of whom returned with and, even if lacking "wheels," at the least promoted the idea of racing two-seat sports cars.
Using the Sports Car Club of America (-25 pts. for anyone missing the "SCCA" thing) as the benchmark for U.S. sportscar racing's birth, the club had yet to turn 20-years old when Ferrari neared the end of its sports car racing dominance in the mid-60's.
It was WWII which would spur the United States' launch into super-power status and while it had demonstrated a clear, indisputable mastery of military might then and since, Europeans at best considered U.S. manufacturers, race cars, drivers and the like as boorish -- the Automobile Club L'Ouest today still believing the same (except of Patrick Dempsey and Jerry Lewis, of course).
For its part, the U.S. saw mainland European sportscar types as effete snobs and, particularly with respect to the ACO, still do -- excepting those connected with a certain U.S.-based sanctioning body who have carried too far their abject appreciation of Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roche Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette.
JUST TELL "U.S." WE CAN'T . . .
Beforehand and nearly unnoticed in the world of racing (excepting in the early 20th Century when Henry The First used racing to market and help develop his production cars), Ford engines began significantly impacting motorsports in the early 1960's.
Using an English Ford Kent engine massaged by a couple of fellows named Mike Costin and Keith Duckworth, together as "Cosworth," teamed with Lotus and Jim Clark in 1960 and pretty much changed the world.
At first based and developed purely on the Kent 1000cc engine's displacement, following larger-bore versions of that engine found their way into sports car, F1 and, for the street, the Ford-turned-Lotus Cortina (a well-maintained, original 1965 Lotus Cortina today sells for, roughly: US $45k; UK £30k; Euro €34k; and, assuming Greece abandons the Euro, Drachma 3,329,583,865k, give or take a Drachma or two).
Even though the Cooper Climax shocked the senses in the 1961 Indianapolis 500 and before that could lay claim to having laid the groundwork for what Lotus founder Colin Chapman would achieve, if not perfect, the "Garage Owner" (as Enzo Ferrari once derisively termed chaps like Chapman and Cooper) phase of formula racing, in which racing chassis were built in a myriad of mostly British household garages (among them retired racing great Morris Nunn, who says "Hi," Tony) independent of in-house engine programs -- the latter aspect shifting completely to engine-building entities like Cosworth and, later, Ilmor.
That a racing-chassis constructor would build cars without also building the engines fitting within plainly was a watershed moment in F1, if not motorsports altogether.
Running counter to that trend, Ferrari was starting to take knocks from all sides of racing, as was another Italian carmaker, Maserati. The latter would provide headaches galore to future car historians ("matching numbers" being of higher stature than most church statues, um, saints), Maserati's mechanics at one point relegated to assembling engines and cars using new, used, borrowed and shifted parts to field its racing cars. (Maserati would be sold in 1968 to French car manufacturer, Citroën.)
Save someone tied to Ferrari through production, sales, ownership or a devotee, most folks tend to think Ferrari and "automobile factory" as synonymous.
In many respects the company is that, of course, but because Merriam-Webster doesn't include hard numbers when defining "factory," vast gulfs can exist in production capabilities and, ultimately, quantities between those entities which produce "cars" for public consumption and, yet, still be classified as a "factory."
Somewhere between Webster's Collegiate Dictionary definitions, Karl Marx On Economics (surely we don't have Commies in motorsports, do we?) and Real-World Capitalism (sorry, I'll try to restrain the use of "bad" words like "hard work," "innovative," "industriousness" and "capital"), Ferrari's economic situation was worrisome at best.
Perhaps more true of Ferrari than many -- even American manufacturers upon whom the phrase was most often hung -- "win on Sunday; sell on Monday" was crucial to Ferrari being able to put food on the employees' family plates.
More so to the late Enzo Ferrari, "winning on Sunday and selling on Monday" was crucial to his personal pursuit of "winning again the following Sunday," because while crafting cars for public consumption was among Ferrari's loves, racing cars was his life's passion, as represented in Enzo Ferrari's eventual use of famed "Prancing Horse" symbol on Scuderia Ferrari cars long before Ferrari, the car company itself, began production.
(BTW - According to one version of lore regarding the Prancing Horse design: A badge displaying a prancing horse on a shield, originally the insignia of a WWI Italian fighter squadron, was given in 1923 to a young, bold, race-car driving Enzo Ferrari by Count Enrico Baracca, father of dead Italian fighter ace Count Francesco Baracca, the elder Baracca having taken admiring notice of Ferrari's hang-it-all-out racing bravado and seeing much of his son. A second variation of the above has Francesco Baracca's mother as the badge's presenter. A third has Enzo Ferrari's mother, Adalgisa, buying the badge's airplane remnants from Francesco Baracca's crashed SPAD S.XIII biplane, then giving it to her son as a birthday present. Yet another: given that the Prancing Horse supposedly didn't appear on a Ferrari race car until about 1932, some claim all of the preceding is horse-hockey, that Enzo Ferrari based the Prancing Horse emblem on Stuttgart, Germany's city crest and, given the presence of Mercedes and Porsche in that "stadtkreis," Ferrari was reluctant to admit to Stuttgart being the inspiration for the Ferrari emblem.)
Back to the real world, well, the 1960's at any rate: In a Catch-22 existing between carmaker Ferrari and Scuderia Ferrari, Ferrari's principal conundrum was the company's physical constraints in splitting artisans' time between fulfilling a consumer demand that exceeded allotted production and that of fielding a winning race enterprise.
When product sales lag, cash flow lags. A lagging cash-flow then constricted racing funds or, alternately, "advertising" which prodded consumer purchases that in turn funded the racing that in turn . . .
And while Scuderia Ferrari did very well in Formula One racing, winning six championship titles of the 16 contested from 1950 through 1964, many insist sports car racing was his favored racing pursuit -- Le Mans being at the top of that list.
John Surtees, OBE, and 1964 Formula One championship winner for Ferrari, was later credited as saying, "At Ferrari in those days you started with a handicap; until Le Mans was over you couldn't really do the work you wanted to do, and needed to do in Formula One."
The simple answer (particularly those possessing the "God Complex" referenced in Part I) was "hire more people," but which likely would've consequently required more factory space, both of which cost additional capital.
Unlike Carroll Shelby's Ford association, Jim Hall's thing with Chevy and, to a lesser extent at the time, Roger Penske with whomever, Enzo Ferrari didn't have an interested "Big Brother" to lean on when he needed a new widget or thingamabob. While it's probable Enzo Ferrari had a back door, he darn sure didn't need one to sneakily pass anything through it.
WHAT TO DO? WHAT TO DO?
Though Ferrari today employs many modern techniques in its vehicle construction, remember that Ferrari enjoys, if not downright promotes a reputation for having hands-on "artisans" craft its cars from bumper to bumper front to rear, such being even more the case in 1963 when Enzo Ferrari reportedly squelched, some say at the last possible moment, a deal to provide needed capital to Scuderia Ferrari and sell the Prancing Horse's commercial sales side lock, stock and carburetor to the Ford Motor Company.
The supposed Ferrari take on the soured deal was twofold: Enzo Ferrari wished to continue at the head of an essentially independent Scuderia Ferrari; and, "Scuderia Ferrari" wished to compete in the Indianapolis 500.
Though Ford reportedly wasn't uptight and out-of-sight to the first part; the second was seen as problematic inasmuch as Ford engines had just begun a soon-to-be domination of the Indy 500 grid.
(A manufacturer's universal desire, whether then, now or probably well into the future apparently is to dominate a racing series, often through means beneficial to one manufacturer but to the detriment of others, often leaving unsatisfied a race fan's desire for straightforward, on-track competition.)
Whoever, whatever, however, it is clear "Ferrari" was a deal that suddenly wasn't, leaving the head of Ford Motor Company, Henry Ford II, less than a happy camper.
The repercussions of the imploded Ferrari deal were about to change the face of sports car racing far and wide, the egos of manufacturers, racers and even sanctioning bodies about to be tested as never before . . . while fans would eventually take it on the chin.
END OF PART III
It’s likely the next part of this series won’t hit until after the conclusion of The Miami Grand Prix at Homestead-Miami Speedway this weekend. HMS is going to be a pretty busy place this weekend, what with the Rolex Series, Continental Series and the newest kid on the block, the Showroom Stock, er, Sportsman Showcase series. Also Known As the “Run What You Brung, Within Limitations, Of Course” Series, it actually has an outstanding future. For one, I’ll be watching with interest. Hope to see you there.
Later,
DC
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