In the morally ambiguous postwar period in Italy where accusations of fascist sympathies or collaboration flew about, Gioachino Colombo (1903–87), one of Alfa Romeo’s top racing car designers, and pupil of the great Alfa Romeo designer Vittorio Jano (1891– 1965), found himself suspended owing to various ‘political misunderstandings’. Alfa Romeo, moreover, had had to forsake sporting cars in favour of utility products such as cookers, as well as the cheapest cars, so Colombo must have been delighted to receive a call from Enzo Ferrari (1898–1988).
Ferrari, of course, had previously run the prewar Alfa Romeo racing team. Like many engineers in the postwar era, he was forced to do utility jobs but he was itching to make his own 1500cc racing car and asked Colombo what general design principles he would adopt. ‘Maserati has a first-class eight-cylinder machine, the English have the ERA six-cylinder job, and Alfa has its own 8C. In my view you should be making a twelve cylinder.’ Colombo recalled the reply as, ‘My dear Colombo, you read my thoughts. I’ve been dreaming of building a twelve-cylinder for years. Let’s get to work straight away.’
The car that emerged was actually drawn up in Colombo’s Milan bedroom and one cannot underestimate what an ambitious and virtuoso achievement this first Ferrari was, especially given the conditions of the time. Subsequently, some have decried Colombo’s work, comparing his designs unfavourably with those of his successor, Aurelio Lampredi (1917–89), but there is no doubt that Colombo had great talent, for he later developed the Maserati 250F – the greatest Grand Prix car of its generation, and the one in which the legendary British driver Stirling Moss came to prominence. It is no exaggeration to claim that Colombo created the ancestral architecture of the entire Ferrari range.
The first Ferrari – the 125S at the factory entrance, Maranello, 1947. We can be sure that the autocratic Enzo Ferrari was not consulted about the strident communist graffiti scrawled over the gateway.