BOOKREVIEW FERRARI:THEGOLDENYEARS

Enzo Ferrari was once quoted as saying “I build engines and attach wheels to them”.

But what he actually achieved in his 90 years, many spent building his eponymous team, was considerably greater than that.

Fittingly, the latest instalment in Leonardo Acceri’s collection of Ferrari books is much more than a simple tribute to the man they famously called Il Commendatore.

Unlike the book’s predecessors, Ferrari 19491997 and Ferrari 60, Ferrari: The Golden Years celebrates the Italian marque’s 70th anniversary by delving solely into its history while Enzo’s hand was on the tiller.

The book contains the stunning imagery of Franco Villani – the photographer whose collection was recently acquired by publisher Giorgio Nada. The images are truly spectacular and give the periods of Ferrari stars Tazio Nuvolari, Alberto Ascari, Lorenzo Bandini, Niki Lauda and Gilles Villeneuve a delightful colour rebirth.

The images of Ferrari’s exploits on the sportscar scene in the 1960s are some of the best in the entire book. The stunning 330 P4, guided masterfully by Chris Amon and Bandini en route to yet another Monza 1000Km triumph, represents a period during which Ferrari enjoyed much success.

But the book is not without its flaws. While it does make for engaging reading, it is largely chronological and lacks the sort of depth you would expect a dedicated biography to cover. And quite why it has grey text against a white page is perhaps something known only to the publisher since it does make it difficult to read at times.

One mildly disappointing aspect of the imagery is that there aren’t more shots of Villeneuve drifting his 312T4 in that iconic fashion. But this is only a smudge on an otherwise immaculate collection of images.

The large amount of never-before-seen shots of Enzo himself is a wonderful asset. A striking black-and-white image of Ferrari in deep discussion with Nuvolari ahead of the Flying Mantuan’s Mille Miglia race is as wondrously intriguing as it is haunting.

Legendary engineer Mauro Forghieri and his career at the Scuderia is documented in the book also. The evolution of the Scuderia’s engineering might is well documented by the shots of a young – and gradually ageing – Forghieri, who was the charismatic technical figurehead of Ferrari from his arrival in 1962 to his departure a year before Enzo’s death, in August 1988.

Overall, Ferrari: The Golden Years is a stunning collection of photography that will leave readers in no doubt as to the source of the everlasting infatuation many people have for the Ferrari brand.