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Twelve miles apart, in Italy's Reggio Emilia region, two intensely dedicated companies built great racing cars and battled each other for supremacy on race circuits throughout the world. The fierce rivalry between Ferrari and Maserati was at its peak during the 1950s, when both went all-out to compete in Grands Prix and sports-car racing. Their feud helped keep Italy at the forefront of motorsport for several decades. It also laid the foundation for the recent racing resurgence of both Ferrari and Maserati. Karl Ludvigsen chronicles the drama, personalities, crises and casualties of this famous home-town rivalry.
The historic home-town battle began in the 1930s, when Enzo Ferrari's team raced Alfa Romeos against the factory Maseratis. Ferrari's drivers won the World Championship in 1952, 1953, 1956 and 1958 while Maserati's took the crown in 1954 and 1957, and the rivalry continued at Le Mans. It made for thrilling racing, not only on all the European circuits but also as far afield as Sebring in Florida, Watkins Glen in the heart of the United States, and Buenos Aires in Argentina. Red-Hot Rivals recreates this intense competition that raged from 1947 to 1967.
Karl Ludvigsen takes the reader into the boardrooms and secret racing workshops of both marques, discusses the careers of Enzo Ferrari and the Maserati brothers, and follows the Maseratis to Bologna in 1949 and their founding of OSCA. Red-Hot rivals investigates the fascinating inside details of Ferrari's bold decision to build a V12, the alliance of Alberto Ascari with Aurelio Lampredi to win two world titles, and the immortal Maserati 250 F, 300 S and 450 S. It reveals the titanic sports car battles between Maserati's Stirling Moss, Jean Behra and Juan Manuel Fangio and Ferrari's Luigi Musso, Peter Collins and Mike Hawthorn, and the feat of John Surtees in winning Grands Prix for both Ferrari and Maserati in 1966. All enthusiasts of great racing cars and drivers will relish the competition that unfolds so spectacularly and vividly in the action-packed pages of Red-Hot Rivals.
Author Karl Ludvigsen was no stranger to the Red-Hot Rivalry, having witnessed many on-track battles first hand. He visited the Maserati, Ferrari and OSCA factories in the late 1950s, and closely followed their activities, meeting both Enzo Ferrari and Ernesto Maserati. He knew such key architects of later generations as Carlo Chiti, Mauro Forghieri and Giulio Alfieri. His Ludvigsen Library (www.ludvigsen.com) has provided images from photographers Rodolfo Mailander and Max Le Grand that brilliantly illuminate the two decades of rivalry. Ludvigsen has more than four dozen books to his credit. Three received the Nicholas-Joseph Cugnot Award from the Society of Automotive Historians, which in 2002 gave him its highest accolade, Friend of Automotive History. He has twice been awarded the Montagu Trophy of the Guild of Motoring Writers. His books for Haynes have included Classic Grand Prix Cars, The V12 Engine, Classic Racing Engines and biographies on Alberto Ascari, Juan Manuel Fangio and Stirling Moss.
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