Doomed to Fail - Ep 193: How fast can this go? Più veloce!! - Enzo Ferrari

Episode Date: April 24, 2025

Let's talk fast cars and family rivalries! Today, we talk through the Ferrari and Lamborghini families, and how their patriarchs worked to have the fastest engine available, and not necessarily the coolest looking car. I think that just happened to happen!  Join our Founders Club on Patreon to get ad-free episodes for life! patreon.com/DoomedtoFailPodWe would love to hear from you! Please follow along! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpod  Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/@doomedtofailpod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@doomed.to.fail.pod Email: [e-mail] 

It's a matter of the people of the state of California versus Hortonthal James Simpson, case number B.A.019. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you do your career. Welcome back to your own show. How are you? Good. How are you? Doing well.

Still reeling from your exhilarating stories about Edmund Hillary and horrible, horrible, Antarctic plane crashes But I'm going to change the pace today But why don't you go ahead and introduce us And I'll change the pace Nice Hello everyone, welcome to doomed to fail I am Taylor joined by Fars

Every week we bring you history's Most notorious disasters And greatest failures And I'm excited to hear what you got And my story actually is similar to yours In the sense that it will include old topics of ours It's fun We've really honestly

Discovered so much stuff It's insane I know, I know. Somebody should start another podcast covering the stories that we cover, the way that now there's like an office show covering office episodes. Oh my God, I know. That's so funny. Did you see our TikTok drama that someone gave us a better view?

No. What do they say? So like I wrote, I did talk about the, the friar burning all of the books, the Mayan books in, you know, the Maya, in Central. America, all that. And someone was like, but the minds kill people. And I was like, I know, but I don't think that that doesn't, everyone kills people. It doesn't justify killing people, you know? And then, um, then I didn't block them because I don't know how to do that. And then they, some person wrote like a really long, bad review on Apple podcast saying that I blocked them on TikTok because I didn't want to hear their opinion. And I was like, that was so mean. I didn't do that. And that's way out of your way to be mean. we I'm a firm believer in open opinions and ideas we will never block you so please give us some feedback and we might agree it might disagree we will not block you of course and they um what do they also say oh they also said all these five star reviews must just be from friends and family and I was like

if you had any idea how hard it is to get our family to give us five stars you would not say that it took me myself like six months to figure out how to do it yeah so that's not that isn't it does it comes from other people which we really appreciate because it's hard to get people to do that that's not easy. Also I will say that we really took a while like we did take a little bit to hit our stride and so if you listen to

like super early episodes give us another chance on later episodes because we're getting a little bit more and more professional with this so that'll be kind of you to do yeah we've been doing it for like two and a half years or something you don't like try something else. Exactly. We have plenty of topics we just discovered. All kinds of stuff.

You'll learn stuff. So my story today, it's going to touch a little bit on Taylor covered the Ford Motor Company, specifically Henry Ford. I'm going to cover a part. Part of it's going to dovetail into the Ford story. So, but I'm not covering Ford. But I am going to cover someone that I found super, super interesting given how big of a jerk they are and how many horrible things they did to their own company. Just sheerly because people hated them so much. It's very fun.

okay uh i'm going to be covering enzo ferrari oh fun but mostly the stuff he did that changed the face of like the car industry in the you in the world because of how big of a jerk he was isn't is that that movie with that was his face i didn't see yes yes well so i think that yeah i think that's just about his issue with ford But this is actually going to cover another more fun issue that he had that was probably more consequential, I think. So he, Enzo Ferrari, single-handedly spawned some of the most historic automotive events purely from the spite he was able to generate from others around him. And you know what? I just said the stories about Enzo Ferrari.

And it's like, I'm going to cover him a good bit, but I'm going to cover one of the big things that he spawned as a result. that. So we'll go with that. First things first, Enzo Ferrari, as we all know, Ferrari, the car company. Like, he's the guy who started the car company, right? Everybody knows that. Okay. So he did not care at all about consumer car sales. He was a race guy through and through. That's all he really cared about forever and ever. It's like you mentioned this when you talked about Schumacher. Yeah? Yes. Yes. Exactly. Oh, man. We have done so many episodes. Honestly, we know so much. It's empty. So the fact that we even have a consumer car brand named Ferrari is only because he had to find a way

to fund his passion for auto racing, and they're like, fine, I'll sell cars. Like, I'll accidentally trip backwards into being like the most luxurious known car brand in the world. So the company itself has been around since 1938, but for the vast majority

of its existence, it had no interest in designing or in building the bodies of their vehicle. So for about 73 years from its founding, they outsource those functions to third-party contractors, because all they cared about was the underpinning. They were just trying to develop race engines and race transmissions.

Like, fine, we'll just throw it into this chassis. And now somebody else forgot the rest of it and then sell it. That doesn't go hand in hand for aerodynamics? I don't know. No, not really. Well, I mean, not back then. Because everything back then was shaped like a file cap then. Right.

I mean, now we know about drag coefficient and stuff like that. But they didn't know any of that stuff back then. Okay. Yeah, like it wasn't until 2011 that they actually started doing any of this stuff in-house which is crazy like they went that long yeah

and I bring this all to speak again to the character of Enzo Ferrari which dovetails into the whole Ford debacle which occurred when Ford under the direction of Henry Ford's grandson wanted to sexify the Ford brand which is like my official terminology

for this at the time Enzo Ferrari had grown entirely uninterested in creating consumer cars and he sent out an offer to Ford to acquire the consumer brand Ferrari so that Enzo could just focus on racing. Where did he get his money from? Well,

he was winning races and he became successful doing that. And then... And then you want to make his own stuff. Well, the bigger and bigger you get, the more money it takes to get into racing. I forgot what it is right now, but I think an average F1 race course is like a $40 million vehicle. Right, right. So Henry Ford

the second jumped of this opportunity because he was like our brand sucks and nobody thinks we're sexy. What year was this? Like Edsel time? an hour. This would have been 60, oh, yeah, I'll be in 1960s.

And so an agreement was essentially reached between Ford and Ferrari to acquire the consumer brand and distribute create and distribute

cards under the Ferrari logo. And all this was basically done and a final contract was put in front of Enzo. And the one, there was one clause in the contract that said that Enzo himself on behalf of FryR Racing would have to reach out to Ford and request funding for any racing developments that incurred cost essentially.

Okay. And Enzo read that and was like, I'm absolutely not doing that. And you just blew the entire deal up. And Henry Ford, the second, he decided that, you know what? We'll make our own sexy brand and what he's. ended up doing was he developed the iconic Ford GT40 that would go on to win the Lamans,

the 24 hours of Le Mans was the most prestigious race in the world and that's where the movie Ford versus Ferrari that's basically the entire focus of Ford versus Ferrari. Got it. That's what that movie's called. That's literally what it's called, yeah. Oh wow. Yeah.

Yeah, like Carol Shelby gets, it's like so much so much of like modern automotive lore was all spurned because of this rebuke by Enzo. Like I said, yeah, that was the 1960s. So moving on, I'm going to get to the other amazing development that happened. There was like several things happening at the same time that results in the creation of

another incredibly iconic car brand, Lamborghini. So we're going to start with a man named Furuccio Lamborghini. Love it. Love it. Great job. So he was born in 1916 and I actually find his story of success a lot more interesting than that of Enzo Ferrari because it sounds like he kind of created one of the most iconic car brands as like a side hustle which is like pretty cool. So he was born to grape farmers in Chento, Italy and as a result was drawn to farming and farming equipment from a young age. He developed a knack for working with machinery and during World War II worked as a mechanic based.

managing and upgrading and enhancing and repairing the Italian war machines. During World War II, Italian farmland was devastated, and the workforce for farms was devastated because young men were dead from the war. And so, um, so Frutio saw an obvious opportunity. And then immediately after the war, he bought up surplus military vehicles and started converting them into, in his own garage to become farming equipment. So now you have, you need way less men and you have much better. equipment and all that kind of benefited the the agricultural industry in Italy.

That totally makes sense. I feel like, you know, all that we talked about this, I feel like last week I mentioned just all of the advances of technology that you have to happen during a war. Yeah. Yeah, you have to. You don't have a choice. And if you become a tank building factory, like, why not become a tractor building factory, you know?

There you go. Exactly. So he founded his company called Lamborghini Trattori in 1948. And his focus was on tractors. There was government incentives kind of like to, basically everything was destroyed in Italy. And so there were these government incentives saying buy local. And as a result, they would give like really low interest rate loans to people to buy local. And so as a result, his farming equipment became super, super ubiquitous within Italy.

And it made Ferruccio super, super wealthy as a result. God, we're so lucky that we still have like the freaking colseum. yeah seriously like thank god thank god we have the David I don't know so part of this story that I didn't bake into this

is that there was movement amongst in Italy between the factories of Ferrari and then later on the factories of Lamborghini because it would keep getting bombed well not well not actually

no what no mind I take that back it wasn't Lamborghini because I was after the war but Ferrari did move I think they were originally in Medina and then they had to move to

Marinella to get away from the bombing. So that's what they currently are for this day. So Frutio is now a successful rich guy and he wants to do the next big thing as a successful rich guy and buy Ferrari, which is what you do when you're rich. That makes sense.

I feel like that's still track. That's still, yeah, that's still the case. Ferrari is so interesting. It's like now like a thing where like now they like, you got to buy like 15 different shitty models before they'll sell you. good money you gotta be like super super rich now yeah yeah you gotta be like one of those guys gotta buy the racing jacket exactly so this is nineteen fifty eight and he decides to um go down

from his uh from his home in chento down to marinello where like i said the ferrari hcue is and purchase this new car it was a ferrari 250 gt at the time it cost 18 000 today that would be 200 000 um and interesting left uh now they go for 20 million at auction so well it was kind of a bargain back then yeah and he really hated

the experience he constantly would complain that it wasn't a good driver's car and like I said he's right about that because far he didn't build a driver's car

he built a race car and then put driver stuff on top of it to make it a driver's car yeah it would break down quite a bit especially the clutch

which malfunctioned or torched itself fairly regularly and that would always require treks down from chento down to marinello to get it repaired and then he have to wait a long time and all that stuff he was just annoying it was annoying experience he didn't like it yeah and i feel like a lot of the thing with luxury cars even now is like you

have to get them fixed at their special places and then everything costs 10 billion dollars more than you'd think well that and like especially with a race car right like like i think i think a like i forgot what it is i think it's the um the bagadi varon like the super expensive one where, like, you have to replace the tires after, like, a thousand miles, and they're, like, $40,000. And then you have to replace the wheels after four tire changes for, like, $100,000. Like, it's, like, really high maintenance. Yeah. So eventually, after a few trips down for repairing this clutch, Frichio actually went to Enzo at the factory.

And he confronted him saying, hey, your car sucks. The clutch is awful. I'm an engineer by trade. I build stuff that is meant to last. give you guidance on how to improve your clutch. To which Enzo replied, quote, let me make cars. You stick to making tractors. Wow.

So. That feels like that's a bad idea. He messed up on this one. It's going to bite him in the butt later. So again, Frutio, also a very rich, successful engineering-minded guy. He was obviously pissed by the insult and decided that he would just build the car that he wanted to spite Enzo. Yeah.

And here's where Serendipity kind of plays in the things. two years before this meeting. So this happened in 1963. In 1961, Enzo had introduced his wife, Laura Domingo Gorello, after 38 years of marriage with zero automotive experience or interest in the business, into the business in a leadership capacity. This did not go well. That's annoying. So super senior folks, like the chief engineer, the heads of racing, they were sitting like,

why is she deciding what we do? Like it makes no sense. Like she doesn't know this industry. And these were the people that were responsible for basically all major engineering and production development within Ferrari and they were super pissed. And as a result, pissed Enzo off by saying, hey, your wife shouldn't be in this company or she should do something that doesn't result in like direct engineering oversight. And he goes, you know what? Heard and also you're all fired. So he ended up firing his highest range.

employees. This is amazing. I feel like none of this is shocking. So these guys would come together to form a company called Automobility, Tresmo A-E-Sport, or ATS for short, to compete in racing with Ferrari. They took their considerable experience and expertise and started developing immediately their own racing engines, transmissions, other components to the drive train. One of those guys, a guy named Giati Bizarini, got a call from Ferruccio Lamborghini after his drive-back from Enzo's office, and Frio asked him to develop a V-12

engine that could compete with Ferrari. The rest of the Fired Ferrari team would also be commissioned to help develop the first-going Lamborghini and within four months of that meeting, they had built the Lamborghini 350 GTV. Again, from

the start of this conversation to fully having a launched vehicle was only four months. And Frutio decided that, hey, let's go ahead and incorporate this new company. he called it Automobilly Lamborghini on October 30th, 1963. The car was a reasonable enough success to warrant Fruccio purchasing a huge factory in Santa Gata,

which is currently where Lamborghinis are produced, and start production of his new car. And both carmakers would continue on with their various different trajectories and have multiple different acquisitions of different interests. Now Lamborghini is considered kind of like the upper echelon. I mean, it's up there with Ferrari, and it literally didn't exist. But for this, Ferrari, six years after Lamborghini's founding, sold 50% of the company to Fiat, while Enzo retained the racing division, what he always cared about.

Right. Enzo would die in 1988, and Ferrari, by that time, part of the Chrysler Group after they were purchased by Fiat, is spun off its own brand, which it still is today. It's still an independent company. Lamborghini would continue growing as a premium sports car brand, then Fruccio managed the control over the business until 1973 when the oil crisis kind of forced him into selling his interest. The company changed hands a few times.

Chrysler again in the mix here, owning Lamborghini in 1987 before selling it to, it was like some Indonesian investment group. And then in 1994, Volkswagen, who owned Audi, Audi ended up purchasing Lamborghini, and that's currently where it lives now. Wow. Fruccio himself died in 1993 of a heart attack and by that point he was pretty much retired and just producing wine on his villa, farming and going back to his roots, which is kind of a fun little way to die, I guess.

Good for him. That does so nice. So, yeah, between the two of them, between Ford and, I mean, I don't know how many more stories of this there are. There are probably like tons more if he was able to get the outcomes he was able to get from just pissing these two guys off. But here we are. Does Lamborghini have like a big racing contingent now? they're not like that they do have a racing team i don't know if the racing team is active in leban which is the biggest of the big that's where he wants to get involved in um typically it's

ferrari mclaren williams racing mercedes bends that kind of dominate that league and asin martin's getting more and more like into it but a lot of those car companies they were just like rooted in racing and so that's why they just maintain that status that's funny that like not long after cars were invented, it was like, we're going to go as fast as possible against each other. Yeah, yeah. And there's so many stories. There were stories about how Enzo was hauled in a court because one of his cars, like something happened during a race where it spun off and killed 15 spectators.

Like, racing in the early days was basically just people turning into lasagna. Like, it was a terrifying experience. Yeah. Yeah. But, um, this car is a very, expensive, this Lamborghini's. Yeah, yeah. They have a different reputation, though.

Like, Lamborghini now is turning more into like the Everyman's kind of supercar as opposed to Ferraris where like, again, like I said, like you got to buy like all the different models and then maybe you'll have a shot at buying the really nice one. I think Porsche does that now too, where you have to buy all the crappy ones before they'll sell you a really nice one. But that's how they maintain prestige. They have like different places where there isn't one in Los Angeles. it says there's Lamborghini

Long Island that means left yeah a lot of those dealerships are like multiprovers so they'll do like Lamborghini Rolls Royce Aston Martin or some variation therein because again there's not that much that many people buying cars

I mean like one of them is like $350,000 but how many of them are you going to sell? Yeah I mean technically you don't really need to sell like two a year to make a decent living but yeah that's my story it's a little bit of a shorty but I thought it was kind of fun.

No, it's fun. It's interesting. I want to learn more about Italy during World War II also. I totally forgot that Hitler turned on Mussolini. I don't think I knew that. I don't know anything. I just, I want to learn more. I don't really know what happened there. Yeah, so I was Googling why did Hitler turn on Mussolini?

And one of them was, because Mussolini was kind of an idiot. And Hitler was upset and pissed. Didn't he like marry his cousin or something? He probably did, but I assume a lot of people back then did. I read something about how like he decided on his own volition to like invade some part of Africa. And then his people were like stuck and Hilo was like, we're fighting a huge war here. Now I got to go to Africa to get your guys out. They're like, I'm tired of this guy.

He's a dufus and just attacked him. Yeah. Which I can see. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, I want to learn more. more about it. Yeah, we should do a Mussolini episode.

Yeah, because, like, I also, like, obviously, like, Hitler was going to turn them eventually. If his thing is, like, my people are perfect, why would any other people think that he would not, that he would accept them, you know? Which, like, probably wouldn't have been the worst thing in the world for him to do, if not for the fact that he also turned on Stalin. Like, that's where, that was the big flood there, I think.

Well, he's going to, he was going to turn everybody eventually. yeah yeah um well cool thank you that was fun yeah a little little quickie just want to dive into some fun history there um do we have anything to read off no but i did want to tell you that i did put out my first episode of my josh for tree podcast it's like three minutes long it's an intro episode but it's called the joshua tree bee and you can find it on your podcast apps i am going to go subscribe that would be cool um I'm hosting it on substack because it's free and then I can also have a newsletter. Kind of fun.

Okay, you're going to have to like link to it because it is, it is going to be tough searching this. Are you in pocketcasts? It's called the Joshua Tree B. Yeah, don't Google it. It's like, it's like I put it on things this morning. So it takes a while. Okay, if you know what? I found it.

Okay. Fun, all right. It's me. It's me. Thank you. See how easy that was? Oh, thank you. I made it.

And you know what? I'm going to give it five stars. Oh, you please listen to the podcast first. Sorry. Silly. I'll eventually give it five stars, I promise. I appreciate you. Please listen to the podcast first.

That's hilarious. It's three minutes long. Yeah. Well, thank you for doing that. I'm excited. Yeah, I'm talking about my town, Joshua Tree, and I'm going to talk about the history of it in the next couple weeks. And then hopefully interviews and people,

a lot of really, really cool people live here and do cool things. Taylor lives there. Taylor's pretty cool. I live here. I want to talk about it. So, yeah, excited. Well, thanks for that. And, yeah, I guess write to us at Dumanafelpod.com. Find us on the social at Dumafell Pod.

And we'll be joining y'all back in about a week. Cool. Thanks so much for us. Thanks, Taylor. Thank you.