Product description
Author Michael Lynch’s book chronicles Luigi Chinetti’s fascinating journey in bringing the marque Ferrari to America and explores the legacy of his North American Racing Team (NART), a cornerstone of international sports car racing in the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies. This story, however, is far more than Chinetti’s influence on Ferrari coming to America, or even his NART racing team. This story shares the challenges Chinetti faced, and overcame, and the unique people he met along the way. The racing team is the main topic of the generously illustrated book: from the beginnings in the 1950s, entries of iconic vehicles such as the 250 GTO or Testarossa, the Le Mans victory in 1965, forays into Formula 1, races with various P-series models through to the 512 BB in the early 1980s.
In time, Chinetti became the sole American importer for Ferrari. Being at the nexus of trade for such exquisite objects of desire meant that Chinetti sought, and was sought after by elite clientele. They came from the worlds of finance, industry, politics, entertainment, and sport. Their personalities ranged from the elegant to the mysterious to the swashbuckling. Michael tells their colorful tales, and how they came toprominence and sometimes to demise, and how they came to appreciate Chinetti and the cars he sold them.
There are not many motor racing books that would make note of Benito Mussolini, Zora Arkus-Duntov, Ginger Rogers, Phil Hill, Miles Davis, Alberto Ascari, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Wilbur Shaw, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Curtis LeMay, Barbara Hutton, Mario Andretti and Paul Newman within its pages. Yet Michael weaves all of them and many more into a tale that includes espionage, financial shenanigans, romantic encounters, family dynasties, artistic accomplishments, triumphs and tragedies, and of course the sporting and technical developments of racing and NART’s influence on them.
