No, the expulsion from Alfa was certainly a severe humiliation for Enzo Ferrari, but it was not a great financial loss, on the contrary. One probably had to pay for the fact that he was forbidden to use the company name Scuderia Ferrari for four years, nor to participate directly in car races. This is how the Auto Avio Costruzioni came into being, although Ferrari was much more concerned with the manufacture of machine parts.

And therefore, the workshop under his small apartment was filled with lathes, milling machines and other machines. His family consisted of Laura and the young son Dino. However, the marriage was not described as happy. It seemed to have hit him particularly hard that, after being taken over by the Orsi family, Maserati settled just a short distance from his workshop.

But Ferrari almost lost its designer Alberto Massimino to Maserati, who at the time was probably the only hope of ever returning to a racing team with his own vehicles. And soon he had a job for him again, namely when the son of the famous Alberto Ascari and his friend approached him and built two sports cars for the Mille Miglia 1940. A Fiat Balilla was chosen as the basis and the 1 liter four-cylinder was replaced by a 1.5 liter in-line eight- cylinder. Two original, but modified cylinder heads then fitted on it again. The body finally came from Touring with their unmistakable Superleggera technology.

Of course, these two cars, which were built in record time, did not win. But it was also a different Mille Miglia than usual. We were amazed that the winners Huschke von Hanstein and Bäumer in the BMW 328 had such an unprecedented fabulous time. The explanation is that it was a 102 mile long course that had to be traversed ten times.

Shortly afterwards Italy also entered the war. No, until the Allies marched up after their landing in Sicily, war successes had not been achieved, on the contrary. Ultimately, the Germans occupied and defended the country. Ferrari didn't care about any of this, it produced machine tools, in some cases particularly sophisticated takeovers of German manufacturers that had no patent protection in Italy. He even expanded strongly, bought a piece of land in Maranello and built a large hall on it.

It were his still functioning contacts up to the highest levels of the economy that got him orders. He always denied that, but the machines he built were of course also used to make military equipment. Apparently the number of employees had more than tripled. But the company was also certified to have a high standard, so that Enzo could have safely expanded here after the war.

Although very sedentary, he has always been a kind of bon vivant. At the age of 46 he began a relationship with one of his female factory workers. Lina Lardi must have been essentially the opposite of his wife Laura, additionally pretty and blonde. He soon had a child with her, while he bitterly had to state that his firstborn is terminally ill. However, he will only recognize his second-born son as his rightful son very late. His name initially: Piero Lardi.

No, the idea of the small-displacement twelve-cylinder by no means came from Enzo alone. Still during the war there were negotiations with Isotta Fraschini to build such one. Nothing came of it because their factory was pretty much destroyed. Such engines were also used by almost every well-known manufacturer. Ferrari went its way, although it had to replace Alberto Massimino with Gioacchino Colombo because of his poaching from Maserati. It wasn't easy for him because of course his factory had also been damaged by bombing.