My top 10 highlights from the episode (watch on Spotify)
1. All masterpieces bespeak the character of its creator.
2. "I have never considered myself a designer or an inventor, but only one who gets things moving and keeps them running. My innate talent was for stirring up men."
3. If there was one essential quality about the man it was his ironbound tenacity, his fierce devotion to the single cause of winning automobile races with cars bearing his name. From 1930 onward, for nearly sixty years, hardly a day passed when this thought was not foremost in his mind. Win or lose, he unfailingly answered the bell. In that sense his devotion to his own self-described mission was without precedent. For that alone he towered over his peers.
4. "I had the stubborn determination to capture the trust of those who work with me."
5. Nothing like a Ferrari had ever graced American roads. They were cars built by Italian artisans, every detail down to the steering wheel handcrafted using some of the same methods used to make Roman suits of armor and the royal carriages of the ancient kingdoms.
6. Ferrari was animated by an extraordinary passion that led him to build a product with no equal.
7. Ferrari has never taken a vacation in his life.
8. "When the driver steps on the gas I want him to shit his pants."
9. When asked about the root of his mania, his obsession with victory, Ferrari said, "Everything that I've done, I did because I couldn't do anything less. One day I want to build a car thať's faster than all of them, and then I want to die."
10. Enzo Ferrari was a man with a diamond-hard will to win at all costs.
Listen to #396 The Obsession of Enzo Ferrari on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube.
Sources:
The Terrible Joys of Enzo Ferrari by Winthrop Sargeant.
The Story of Ferrari by Stuart Codling
Enzo Ferrari: Power, Politics and the Making of an Automobile Empire by Luca Dal Monte
Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine by Brock Yates
Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans by A.J. Baime