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<\/p>\n\u2013 What is it like to win?
\n\u2013 Look, I don\u2019t want to sound like someone who shows off but the truth is that for us, victory was logical. Even in \u201963, when we won for the first time, we didn\u2019t get too excited either. We accepted victories with a certain sense of calmness because the fact of passing the finish line \u2013 in our logic \u2013 was part of the circuit. We took it nearly for granted. Otherwise, the sacrifices made by the mechanics, the drivers and the engineers would have been in vain. If you do this job, victory is part of your way of thinking: either yes or yes. Otherwise, it\u2019s impossible to think about leading such a lifestyle\u2026
\n\u2013 What do you mean?
\n\u2013 A lifestyle so full of sacrifices.
\n\u2013 And what about the drive to go on, was it the victory that fuelled that?
\n\u2013 Yes, the victory. And the passion. A lot of passion.
\nMauro Forghieri chats with tranquillity, surrounded by the eighteenth century Villa Clementina. He has fine hands and his face is lined by the years. The passion which he talks about is still within his body and it\u2019s visible\u2026 even if his meeting with the car industry wasn\u2019t actually love at first sight, but rather a matter of Destiny or of fortuity, whatever you may wish to define it.
\nWhen Mauro Forghieri was a child, he liked building galleons \u2013 \u201cthe Spanish ones, with square sails\u201d, he points out \u2013 but his passion was aeroplanes. Especially fighter planes: he used to draw them, build them and dream about them.
\n\u2013 When I became the manager of the racing department, at Ferrari there were two very good designers from Reggiane: people who truly saw the Re.2000 which I was in love with when I was a child.<\/p>\n
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\u2013 And what happened afterwards: did you change your mind during your journey?
\nForghieri smiles. He has the large windows of Villa Clementina at his back, and you can hear the noise of the wind shaking the top of the trees.
\n\u2013 Actually, even later, during university, I was convinced that I wanted to work with planes. I think that it was then that my childish passion was turned into a final decision. It happened during a trip to the USA when I visited a factory of plane engines, the Northrop. There was a marble slate at the front, which reported a sentence which surprised me. It sounded more or less like this: In theory, the hornet shouldn\u2019t be able to fly as it\u2019s too heavy and it has too small wing surface. But it doesn\u2019t know that, and it flies anyway. I don\u2019t know, I found that sentence to be beautiful, so I thought to myself: \u201cI want to come and work here!\u201d. That was in the \u201960s and at the time, moving to the USA wasn\u2019t the easiest and quickest thing in the world, so\u2026
\n\u2013 So didn\u2019t you ever fall in love with cars before? Did they ever attract you?
\nForghieri is thoughtful, then he nods.
\n\u2013 Cars\u2026 do you know what I used to do when I was a child, in Milan? I used to go out onto the balcony and watch them passing, trying to recognise them. Those which I was never wrong about where Aprilia and Ardea. I recognised them from behind.
\n\u2013 You said in Milan. What were you doing in Milan?
\nForghieri catches his breath. I know that I will have to tell a long and intense story.<\/p>\n
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\u2013 At the time, my grandfather was a friend of Mussolini \u2013 however \u2013 that was when Mussolini was a socialist. He was also a friend of Pertini, who remained a socialist. When Mussolini changed \u201cbeliefs\u201d (let\u2019s call it like that), my grandfather went to France and started writing articles for \u201cAvanti\u201d. This made their relationship collapse, even if their animosity was always contained. Of course, coming back to Italy would have been a wrong move. So my grandfather ended up settling in France for a long time and his son Reclus \u2013 my father \u2013 stayed with him too. Then, over time, my grandfather stayed in Paris, while my father moved to Montecarlo. He was an excellent engineer and so he became very sought after by the local clients, who were luxury car owners. I didn\u2019t inherit much from those two. During the war, I lived here, at Villa Clementina with my mother and my uncles, which resulted in me being a bit of a little \u201cbastard\u201d. I mean, that I took different things from two different worlds.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/internationalclassic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Viadante40-300x212.jpg\")
Mauro Forghieri tells me about his travelling childhood, just like the childhood of anyone who lived through the war years. At the time, settling in a place was a luxury which few people could afford. A home was only a tent where you stayed before you sailed to a new destination. He stayed in Naples, Modena, Milan and Abbiategrasso: Forghieri\u2019s childhood bounces against the walls and fences of a divided Italy.
\n\u2013 My mother tried reaching my father, in Naples, because she was afraid that the war would have separated them. Which actually happened, because the Americans cut Italy in two and we had to get back to Modena. Where schools had already started too. Do you know how it ended? That I was \u201cadopted\u201d by the Ursuline nuns and I found myself in a class with only females. They placed me in plain sight, at a separate desk which was raised above the others, at the bottom of the room. It was interesting to be in a female school. I needed it to notice the difference that there was at the time between the teaching given to women and that of men. Yes, I lived a travelling childhood but it was normal at the time. I also lived in Milan \u2013 that is where I enjoyed recognising the cars which passed by \u2013 and also in Abbiategrasso, at the house of my aunt \u201cElettrica\u201d (\u201cElectrical\u201d)\u2026 that wasn\u2019t her real name, but she travelled so much that the family nicknamed her that. Then, one day, the war was over and my father reached us again. He came from Naples cycling on a bike, with everything which he had left loaded on the back of it (which was very little). When he arrived, he had a long beard!
\n\u2013 Why was your father in Naples?
\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/internationalclassic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Scuderia-Ferrari-Monza-1953-Enzo-Ferrari-Mike-Hawthorn-300x205.jpg\")
\u2013 At the time, he worked for Enzo Ferrari, but since he was well-known as an excellent engineer, during the war he was militarised in Naples, where he was co-opted by Ansaldo. The arrival of the Americans though re-shuffled the cards, causing a general getaway. Amongst those who decided to flee, there was also a colonel who had entrusted the keys of Parco Caruso to my dad, where all of the Italian Genius\u2019s equipment \u2013 all of it \u2013 was deposited. When the Allies arrived, my father preferred not to keep those keys \u2013 which were as hot as fire \u2013 and he decided to hand them over to the new arrivals. Personally, I don\u2019t know whether I would have made the same choice. Maybe I would have waited until the end of the war to hand them over to the Italians, but who knows\u2026 maybe he made the right choice. Once the war was over, things settled once again. My father went back to Modena and Enzo Ferrari was happy to welcome him back.<\/p>\n
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By International Classic, written by Martina Fragale<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Keep following the story Mauro Forghieri \u2013 Chapter 2<\/a><\/p>\n Read also: \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Family \u2013 What is it like to win? \u2013 Look, I don\u2019t want to sound like someone who shows off but the truth is that for us, victory was logical. Even in \u201963, when we won for the first time, we didn\u2019t get too excited either. We accepted victories with a certain sense of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":4087,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[185],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wise-hands","category-185","description-off"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nMauro Forghieri – Chapter 3<\/a>
\nMauro Forghieri – Chapter 4<\/a><\/p>\n<\/h3>\n
Discover the video<\/h3>\n