Publisher edition artwork
Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine
Brock Yates · First published 1991
The unauthorised life of the most difficult man in motor racing.
Highly Recommended
Easy · Medium — around 480 pages
Why Read It?
The one Ferrari book that treats him as a man rather than a monument.
What It's About
A full biography of Enzo Ferrari, from Modena beginnings through Alfa Corse to the empire at Maranello.
Why It Matters
It set the record straight on a heavily mythologised figure and remains the standard reference for the era's racing politics.
The Review
Yates had no interest in the sainted Old Man of Maranello and produced the better book for it. Ferrari emerges as a mediocre driver, an indifferent engineer and an extraordinary manipulator of men — one who understood that a racing team is a court, and ran his accordingly, sometimes at the cost of his drivers' lives.
The research is formidable and the tone is unsentimental. If you have only read the marque histories, this will complicate your affection productively.
Best Read
Before a visit to Modena or Maranello — it will change what you look at.
Three Things You'll Take From It
- 01
He sold road cars only to fund racing, and never pretended otherwise.
- 02
Internal rivalry was a management technique, deliberately applied.
- 03
The myth was constructed with as much care as the engines.
Better Read or Heard?
Available unabridged and well suited to a long drive, appropriately enough.
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The Edition to Own
Later paperback printings are easy to find; the illustrated hardback is worth hunting for the period photography.
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