bragging rights

[JHertzman@domain.elided]

 Mike Cosgrove writes of a 158/159 Alfetta being shown in Dallas with 
attribution to Ferrari, and writes " In looking at my copy of Ferrari, the 
Man, the Machines I realize that Ferrari the man somehow thought he was the 
designer of the Alfetta, although nobody else in the world ever really 
thought that."

The cars we lump together as 158/159 are described by Fusi as three different 
cars; the 158, 158/47, and 159. Fusi does say "Nell'anno 1937, presso la 
Scuderia Ferrari a Modena, venne eseguito lo studio della vettura 158 col 
personale technico inviato appositamente dall'Alfa Romeo" (translated there 
as "The 158 car was developed at Scuderia Ferrari in Modena in 1937. 
Technical staff was specifically sent by Alfa Romeo to this purpose".) The 
person generally understood to have played the largest part in developing the 
158 was Gioacchino Columbo, of whom Fusi says "Nel maggio del 1937 passo, per 
incarico della Direzione Generale dell'Alfa Romeo, alla Scuderia Ferrari di 
Modena per il progetto della monoposto Tipo 158 --" (In may 1937 he was sent 
by Alfa Romeo's General Management to the Scuderia Ferrari in Modena for the 
design of the 158 single-seater car - -) Alfa had in fact pulled out of the 
building and running of race cars in 1932 and turned the existing cars over 
to Scuderia Ferrari in 1933. 

The mid and late thirties were a difficult period for Alfa, for Ferrari, and 
for Italy (among others) and there can be some jostling to claim credit and 
assign blame. Alfa, bankrupt, was under government management. In 1936 Alfa 
had about four thousand employees building aircraft engines, and also 
produced five passenger cars and the five slightly detuned and road equipped 
GP cars which ran in the Mille Miglia as the 8C 2900 A. By 1937 the number of 
employees had risen to just under six thousand, and the number of cars built 
had increased to just under one per workday, probably none of them for sale 
to anyone who did not have excellent connections in the government. Alfa 
Romeo was a company which used to be a car company, and would become one 
again a decade later, and indeed the traditions and heritage are to be highly 
valued, but it may be a stretch to think of Alfa as a car company in that 
period. What they (and Scuderia Ferrari) were doing, and why they were doing 
it, had more to do with Mussolini's ambitions for himself and his country in 
the post-victory divisions to be of Europe and Africa than with anything 
else. If the name "Alfa Romeo" had not had a certain resonance in racing from 
the exploits of 1924 and 1925, the government could easily have decided that 
the Scuderia Ferrari's 158 should wear the badges of Fiat or Maserati (or 
Lancia, or Itala - -) and nobody at Alfa could have refused.

By the time the 158/47 appeared after the war Ferrari was long gone, and the 
cars were unequivocally Alfa Romeos, developed from their 195 CV and 232 Km/h 
under Ferrari to 275 CV and 270 Km/h with the 158/47, to 350 CV and 290 Km/h 
in 1950 and 450 CV, 305 km/h in 1951 as the 159, establishing a splendid 
record to go with the 1924-25 laurels.

I'm not trying to be contentious, but the histories of Jano, Colombo, Ricart, 
Chiti and a few dozen great but less familiar engineers in their orbits, and 
of Alfa, Pegaso, Lancia, Ferrari, Alfa Corse, Autodelta and other 
organizations, are a marvelously intricate plate of spaghetti, and I am more 
inclined to try to enjoy, rather than resent, the occasional eruptions of 
discrepancies about bragging rights among the players. I can always smugly 
reflect that were it not for Jano and his cars Enzo Ferrari would probably be 
only a footnote among the second-rank drivers of the twenties.

Cheers, 

John H.

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