The world of motor sports naturally extols the great professionals. Pilots who dedicate their lives to piloting and obtain greater or lesser success. But there is another category, that of the amateurs, who sometimes bring great joy to the brands. One of them, with his curious story, was Corrado Ferlaino.
Born in Naples on May 18, 1931, he was the son of a successful Neapolitan businessman and the grandson of a judge who had been killed by the Calabrian mafia. In this environment of life with resources, at the end of World War II the young Neapolitan dedicated himself to enjoying himself. He also studied, obtaining an engineering degree at the age of 30, when he was already married and had two children. His friends defined him as ‘spoiled and arrogant’.
Women were one of Ferlaino’s passions, and he married four times and had five children. The others were cars and soccer. With cars he began to race in 1961, at the age of thirty, with a Lancia Appia with which he did not obtain great results. Nor in the following years with an Alfa Romeo. So he made the decision to go big and buy a real racing car. In December 1963 he bought from Gianni Bulgari, the owner of the famous jewelry brand, the car with which he had raced.. A Ferrari 250 GTO.
The Ferrari 250 GTO 3413
With chassis number 3413, the 250 GTO was the third model produced of the now legendary car, on April 30, 1962. Built to compete in the GT World Championship and designed by Giotto Bizzarrini, this unit debuted as a reconnaissance car for Phil Hill before the 1962 Targa Florio. Evocative is Jesse Alexander’s photograph of that car with a herd of goats on the side of the road.
After that, it was sold to Arnalda Colombo, wife of Edoardo Lualdi-Gabardi, a private pilot closely linked to the brand. A personal friend of Enzo Ferrari and also born in 1931 as Ferlaino, since 1953 he had been racing Maranello models. Frequent were his private meals with the owner, who ended up selling him this red unit with blue seats. Immediately, Lualdi-Gabardi began to reap victories: out of ten races, he won nine and was second in the other. The result obviously It was the 1962 Italian GT championship.
Lualdi-Gabardi sold it to Bulgari, who only used it in two races in 1963. It took class victory at the Targa Florio with fourth overall, and in November it took outright victory at the Coppa FISA at Monza. From there it passed into the hands of Ferlaino, who first asked for the car to be recarried. Indeed, the last units of the 250 GTO were being manufactured with a new design signed by Pininfarina and assembled by Scaglietti. This new clothing made it lower, wider and more manageable by lowering the center of gravity. Only 7 copies of this series were made, Chassis 3413 also being one of two with a roof extended to the rearimitating the 250LM whose homologation was being controversial.
received the car, Ferlaino entered him to compete with him for the first time in the 1964 Targa Florio, as a couple with Luigi Taramazzo. Born in 1932, he was more experienced than Ferlaino. He had tried to race in F1 at Monaco 1958, but failed to qualify. In GT and touring cars he had achieved some victory in minor races. The Targa Florio would be his only time at the wheel of the 250 GTO chassis 3413.
The Targa Florio of 1964
Enzo Ferrari was furious with the non-homologation of his new 250LM, as well as with the changes in the International Championship of Makes for GT. That would lead him later in the year to not even officially register for the last two GPs of the F1 World Championship. In the United States and Mexico he raced under the banner of the North American Racing Team of his partner and friend Luigi Chinetti. With his colors, John Surtees would achieve his Formula 1 world championship. But before that, Ferrari had already begun to not officially participate in other disciplines.
Ferrari had just been world GT champion in 1962 and 1963, but to stop its dominance with the 250 GTO, the classes were reconfigured, harming the Italian brand. They had already won the previous two races, at Daytona and Sebring, and for the Targa Florio maintained his decision not to officially register. In this way, he left the responsibility of defending their colors to the private teams. In front of these privateers, there was a large presence of official teams ready to topple Ferrari from its throne of constructors.
The main one was Carroll Shelby and his AC Cobras, backed directly by Ford. The American brand had just been rejected by Ferrari and was turning to beat the Italian. The plan that led to the successes of Le Mans had been started. The team of pilots was of the first order: Phil Hill, F1 world champion in 1961, Dan Gurney, Innes Ireland, Masten Gregory or Bob Bondurant. Porsche had also deployed ambitiously, with its Porsche 904s for Graham Hill, Joakim Bonnier, Umberto Maglioli and Colin Davis, among others. It is true that they ran in another category, but they complicated the existence of Ferrari.
A Ferrari that, in private hands, had Jean Guichet and Carlo Facetti as spearheads within the Scuderia Sant’Ambroeus, the same one in which Ferlaino and Taramazzo were incardinated. The rest were, except for one from the Scuderia Filipinetti for Claude Bourillot and the nobleman Michele de Bourbon-Parme, private inscriptions. with those guns the grueling 10 laps of the 72-kilometre circuit would have to be contested on April 26, 1964. That day, before the race, a bust of Vincenzo Florio was discovered in front of the grandstands, the creator of the race who disappeared five years before.
In warm weather, typical of the Sicilian spring, the race got underway, with Jo Bonnier taking the lead in his Porsche 904, followed by another Porsche driven by Edgar Barth and Dan Gurney taking third in the Cobra. Bonnier’s initial momentum took its toll on the Porsche, which he abandoned on the second lap with a faulty transmission. His teammate took over from him in the lead, but behind him he had put on Guichet’s 250 GTO, which would however yield to the push of Gianni Bulgari and his Porsche. However, Barth and Maglioli had a disastrous stoppage, leaving Bulgari in the lead.
Meanwhile, Ferlaino and Taramazzo were having a regular race. At the Targa Florio it was important to be fast, but above all not to make mistakes and let the race evolve. This is what happened after half of the test. The Porsche of Colin Davis and Antonio Pucci, in third place, saw on the sixth lap how first the Ferrari of Guichet/Facetti, and then the Porsche of Bulgari/Grana, abandoned. The leadership was his.
Now, Ferlaino and Taramazzo they were the first Ferrari in the race, although they had some Cobra in front of them. But the Americans began to give way: Gregory/Ireland on lap six, Hill/Bondurant on lap nine, while Gurney/Grant had fallen behind. They were climbing. But it was already the last lap. Porsche won with a double, with Davis and Pucci in first place. The first Ferrari came fifth, but was first in its category. The Cobra could only finish eighth. With that result, Ferrari achieved 14.4 points in the championship.
At the end of the long season, Ferrari had 84.5 points while Cobra was second with 78.3. Obviously, without those points achieved at the Targa Florio, if that Cobra had come out ahead, Ford would have dealt its first blow to Ferrari. But Corrado Ferlaino and Luigi Taramazzo avoided that situation. Ferrari achieved its third consecutive championship with the 250 GTO. At the end of the year, Enzo Ferrari was happy about it, emphasizing the roundness of a year in which they had also won the drivers’ and constructors’ in F1.
Separate paths
Ferlaino continued to use the Ferrari that year, taking an excellent third place at the fearsome Mugello Circuit, after which the car headed for England. There, via Maranello Concessionaires, it was used in some tests by David Piper in 1965 with victories. The car soon passed into the hands of collectors and left modern racing for historic racing, where it continues to compete. It was, among others, in the hands of the CEO of the cosmetics company L’Oréal, in the hands of a Microsoft executive, until it was auctioned on August 26, 2018 by RM Sotheby’s in Monterey. That day it reached the sum of 48.4 million dollars. It is the most expensive car ever sold to date.
And Ferlaino? After a few more careers, at the end of the sixties he turned to his other passion: the Naples soccer club. There he became president in 1969, becoming the majority shareholder. His promise was to make the team champion. He almost made it in 1975, but he had to wait until he signed one of the most brilliant soccer players in history. Diego Armando Maradona arrived in Naples from Barcelona after a millionaire payment from Ferlaino’s pocket..
And between 1986 and 1990 Napoli, with Maradona, won a lot and well: two leagues, the Italian Cup, the Super Cup and the Uefa. Ferlaino, say the chronicles, was an authoritarian president. But he was successful. And he was still driving fast, boasting of doing the 189 kilometers between Naples and Rome in an hour. AND he even gave him the famous black Ferrari Testarossa to his star, footballer’s representative business through.
A Ferrari 250 GTO was, for those who drove it, a difficult and demanding car. The Targa Florio is recognized as one of the toughest races of all time. Uniting both, in the hands of two amateur pilots, may seem crazy. Of course, Corrado Ferlaino was not a huge pilot. But on that day in April 1964, he earned a place in history and in sporting respect. If he and his partner had not run that Targa Florio, or had made a mistake and abandoned, Ferrari would have one less championship on their record.