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!
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!
Hi Friends! Our transcripts aren't perfect, but I wanted to make sure you had something - if you'd like an edited transcript, I'd be happy to prioritize one for you - please email doomedtofailpod@gmail.com - Thanks! - Taylor
Doomed to Fail brings you history's most notorious disasters and greatest failures
>> Farz: In the matter of the people of State of California vs. Orenthal James Simpson, case number BA097. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not.
>> Farz: What your country can do for you, ask what you. Taylor, we are back. Welcome back to your own show. How are you?
>> Farz: Good. How are you?
>> Farz: Doing well, 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.
>> Farz: 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.
>> Farz: And my story actually is similar to yours in the sense that it will include old topics of ours.
>> Farz: It's fun. We've really, honestly discovered so much stuff, it's insane.
>> Farz: 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.
>> Farz: Oh, my God. I know. It's so funny. Did you see that? Our TikTok drama that someone gave us a better view.
>> Farz: No. What do they say?
>> Farz: So, like, I wrote. I did talked about the. The. The friar burning all of the books, the Mayan books in, you know, my. 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 doesn't just. Everyone kills people. It doesn't justify killing people, you know, and 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 podcasts 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.
>> Farz: We. I. I'm a firm believer in open opinions and ideas. We will never block you. So please give us your feedback and we might agree, might disagree. We will not block you, of course.
>> Farz: And they. 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.
>> Farz: It took me myself, like, six months to figure out how to do it.
>> Farz: 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.
>> Farz: 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 proficient with this. So that'll be kind of, kind of you to do.
>> Farz: Yeah, we've been doing it for like two and a half years. If something you don't like, try something else.
>> Farz: Exactly. We have plenty of topics as we just discovered.
>> Farz: All kinds of stuff. You'll learn stuff.
Taylor covered the Ford Motor Company, specifically Henry Ford
>> Farz: 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 their own company just sheerly because people hated them so much. It's very fun. Okay, I'm going to be covering Enzo Ferrari.
>> Farz: Ooh, fun.
>> Farz: But mostly the stuff he did that changed the face of like the car industry in the, in the world because of how big of a jerk he was.
>> Farz: Isn't. Is that that movie with that what's his face I haven't seen?
>> Farz: Yes, yes. Well, so I think, 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.
>> Farz: Fun.
>> Farz: So he ends up right, 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 of that. So we'll go with that.
Enzo Ferrari did not care at all about consumer car sales
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.
>> Farz: And you mentioned this when you talked about Schumacher.
>> Farz: Yeah, yes, yes, exactly. Oh man, we have done so many episodes.
>> Farz: Honestly, we know so much. It's in the.
>> Farz: 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 a. 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 outsourced 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 figure out the rest of it and then sell it.
>> Farz: That doesn't go hand in hand for like, aerodynamics, I don't know.
>> Farz: No, not really. Well, I mean, not, not, not back then. Because everything back then was shaped like a file cabinet.
>> Farz: Right.
>> Farz: I mean, now we know about drag coefficient and stuff like that. They didn't know any of that stuff back then. Yeah. Like, it wasn't until 2011 they actually started doing any of this stuff in house. Was crazy. Like, they went that long. Yeah.
Ford offered to acquire consumer brand Ferrari so that Enzo could focus on racing
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.
>> Farz: Where did he get his money from?
>> Farz: Well, he was winning races and he became successful doing that.
>> Farz: And then they wanted to make his own stuff.
>> Farz: Well, the bigger and bigger you get, the more money it takes to get into race. I forgot what it is right now, but I think an average F1 race course, like a $40 billion vehicle. So Henry Ford the second jumped at this opportunity because he was like, our brand sucks and nobody thinks we're sexy.
>> Farz: But, like, what year was this? Like Edsel time or an hour?
>> Farz: This would have been 60. Oh, yeah. Up in late 1960s. And so an agreement was essentially reached between Ford and Ferrari to acquire the consumer brand and distribute, Create and distribute cars 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 Fry Racing, would have to reach out to Ford and request funding for any racing developments that incurred Cost, essentially.
>> Farz: Okay.
>> Farz: And Enzo read that and was like, I'm absolutely not doing that. And he 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 ended up doing was he developed the iconic Ford GT40 that would go on to win the le Mans. 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. That's basically the entire focus of Ford versus Ferrari.
>> Farz: Got it. Movie's called.
>> Farz: That's literally what it's called. Yeah.
>> Farz: Oh, wow.
>> Farz: Yeah, yeah, Like Carroll Shelby. Get. 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.
During World War II, Italian farmland was devastated
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 resulted in the creation of another incredibly iconic car brand, Lamborghini. So we're going to start with a. With a man named Ferru. Lamborghini.
>> Farz: Love it, Love it. Great job.
>> Farz: 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 the. 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 Cento, Italy, and as a result, was drawn to farming and farming equipment from a young, young age. He developed a knack for working with machinery and during World War II, worked as a mechanic, basically 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. So Ferruccio 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.
>> Farz: 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 advancements of technology that you have to happen during a war.
>> Farz: Yeah, yeah, you have. You don't have a choice.
>> Farz: And if you become a tank building factory, like, why not become a tractor building factory, you know?
>> Farz: Yeah, exactly. So he founded his company called Lamborghini Trattori in 1948, and his focus was on tractors. There was government incentives, kind of like basically everything was destroyed.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Farz: 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, for his, his farming equipment became super super ubiquitous within Italy and it made Ferruccio super, super wealthy as a result.
>> Farz: We're so lucky that we still have like the frickin Coliseum.
>> Farz: Yeah, seriously, like thank God.
>> Farz: Thank God we have the David. I don't know.
>> Farz: 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 they would keep getting. Well, not. Well, not actually. You know what, nevermind. I take that back. It wasn't Lamborghini because that was after the war. But, but Ferrari did move. I think they were originally in Medina and then they had to move to Marinello to get away from the bombing. So that's where they currently are this day. So Ferruccio 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.
>> Farz: And like that still.
>> Farz: That's still. Yeah, that's still the case for me. So interesting. It's like, it's like now like a thing where like now they like, you gotta buy like 15 different s***** models before they'll sell you a good month. Like you gotta be like super, super, like invest. Yeah, yeah, you gotta be like one of those guys.
>> Farz: Gotta buy the racing jacket.
>> Farz: Exactly. So this is 1958 and he decides to go down from his, from his home in Cento down to Maranello, where like I said, the Ferrari HQ 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. And interesting enough now they go for 20 million at auction. So. Well, it was kind of a bargain back then.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Farz: And he really hated the experience. He constantly would complain that it was, it wasn't a good driver's car. And like I said, he's right about that because Ferrari 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 tracks down from Cento down to Marinello to get it repaired and then they have to wait a long time and all that stuff. He was just annoying. It was annoying experience. He didn't like it.
>> Farz: 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 everything costs $10 billion more than you think.
>> Farz: Well, that and like especially with a race car, right? Like, like, like, I think I forgot what it is. I think it's the, the Bugatti Veyron, 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 the four tire changes for like a hundred thousand. Like it's like, yeah, really high maintenance.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Farz: So eventually, after a few trips down for repairing this clutch for Rach, Ferriccio 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. I'll give you guidance on how to improve your clutch. To which Enzo replied, quote, let me make cars. You stick to making tractors.
>> Farz: So that feels like that's a bad idea.
>> Farz: He messed up on this one.
>> Farz: He's going to bite him in the b*** later.
>> Farz: So again, Ferruccio, also a very rich, successful, engineering minded guy, he was obviously p***** 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 into things.
Two years before this meeting. Enzo had introduced his wife into the business
Two years before this meeting. So this happened in 1963. In 1961, Enzo had introduced his wife, Laura Domingo Garello. 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.
>> Farz: That's annoying.
>> Farz: 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 p*****. And as a result p***** 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 ranking employees.
>> Farz: This is amazing. I feel like none of this is shocking.
>> Farz: So these guys would come together to form a company called Automobili Turismo Esport 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 of the drivetrain. One of those guys, a guy named Giotti Bizzarini, got a call from Ferruccio Lamborghini after his drive back from Enzo's office. And Ferruccio asked him to develop a V12 engine that could compete with Ferrari. The rest of the fire 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, from the start of this conversation to fully having a launched vehicle was only four months. And Ferruccio decided that, hey, let's go ahead and incorporate this new company. Called it Automobile Lamborghini. On October 30, 1963, the car was a reasonable enough success to warrant Ferruccio purchasing a huge factory in Santa Gata, which is currently where Lamborghinis are produced, and start production of his new car. And both car makers would continue on with their various different trajectories and have multiple different acquisitions, different interests. Now Lamborghini is considered kind of like the upper echelon. I mean, it's, it's up there with Ferrari and it literally didn't exist but for this Ferrari. Six years after Lamborghini, 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, and Ferruccio 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. Ferruccio 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.
>> Farz: Good for him. That does sound nice.
>> Farz: So. So yeah, between the two of them, between Ford and. I mean, I don't know how many more stories of this there are. They're probably like tons more if he was able to get the, the outcomes he was able to get from just p****** these two guys off. But here we are.
So does Lamborghini have like a big racing contingent now? They're not like that
>> Farz: So does Lamborghini have like a big racing contingent now?
>> Farz: They're, they're not like that. They do have a racing team. I don't know if the racing team is active in Le Mans, which is the biggest of the big. That's where everybody wants to get involved in. Typically it's Ferrari, McLaren, Williams Racing, Mercedes Benz, that kind of dominate that league and Aston 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 maintained that status.
>> Farz: That's funny that like not long after cars were invented, it was like, we're gonna go as fast as possible against each other.
>> Farz: Yeah, yeah. There's so many stories. There was 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, it was a terrifying experience. Yeah.
>> Farz: But wow, this car is very expensive. These Lamborghinis.
>> Farz: Yeah, yeah. They have a different reputation though. Like Lamborghini now is, is turning more into like the everyman's kind of supercar as opposed to Ferraris where like again, like I said, like you gotta 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 let's say maintain prestige.
>> Farz: They have like different places where there isn't one. In Los Angeles it says there's Lamborghini Long Island. That made me love.
>> Farz: Yeah, a lot of those dealerships are like multi purpose. So they'll, they'll do like Lamborghini, Rolls Royce, Aston Martin or some variation there. Because like, again, there's not that much that any people buying cars.
>> Farz: I mean like one of them is like $350,000. But how many of them are you going to sell?
>> Farz: Yeah, I mean technically you don't really need to sell like two a year to, yeah, 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.
>> Farz: No, it's Fun. It's interesting.
I forgot that Hitler turned on Mussolini during World War II
I want to learn more about Italy during World War II.
>> Farz: Also, I forgot that Hitler turned on Mussolini.
>> Farz: I don't think I knew that. I don't know. I don't know anything. I just. I want to learn more. I don't really know what happened there.
>> Farz: Yeah. So I. 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 p*****.
>> Farz: Marry his cousin or something.
>> Farz: 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 Hiller was like, we're fighting a huge war here. Now I got to go to Africa to get your guys out. And he's like, I'm tired of this guy. He's a doofus and just attacked him.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Farz: Which I can see.
>> Farz: Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. I want to learn more about it. Yeah.
>> Farz: We should do a Mussolini episode.
>> Farz: We should. 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?
>> Farz: 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 flub there, I think.
>> Farz: Well, he's gonna. He was going to turn everybody eventually.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Farz: Yeah. Well, cool. Thank you. That was fun.
>> Farz: Yeah. A little. Little quickie. Just want to dive into some fun history there. Do we have anything to read off?
>> Farz: No. But I did want to tell you that I did put out my first episode of my Joshua Tree podcast. It's only three minutes long. There's an intro episode, but it's called the Joshua Tree Bee, and you can find it on your podcast apps.
>> Farz: I am gonna go.
>> Farz: Want to subscribe. That would be cool. I'm hosting it on Substack because it's free, and then I can also have a newsletter kind of fun.
>> Farz: Okay. You're gonna have to, like, link to it because it is. It is gonna be tough searching this.
>> Farz: Yeah. Are you in podcasts?
>> Farz: It's called the Joshua Tree, B. Yeah.
>> Farz: Don't Google it. It's like. It's like, I put it on things this morning, so it takes a while.
>> Farz: Okay. You know what? I found it.
>> Farz: Okay.
>> Farz: Fun. All right. You gotta follow.
>> Farz: Thank you. See how easy that was? Oh, thank you. I made it.
>> Farz: And you know what? I'm gonna give it five stars. Oh, you please listen to the podcast first.
>> Farz: Sorry, silly.
>> Farz: I'll eventually give it five stars, I promise.
>> Farz: 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 interview some people because a lot of really, really cool people live here and do cool things.
>> Farz: Taylor lives there. Taylor's pretty cool.
>> Farz: I want to talk about it. So, yeah, excited.
>> Farz: Well, thanks for that and yeah, I guess write to us at Doom to fell pod@gmail.com, find us on the social at Doom to Fell Pod and we'll be joining y'all back in about a week.
>> Farz: Cool. Thanks so much for us.