Max Girardo Founder, Girardo&Co

‘I GREW UP IN SOUTH EAST ASIA BUT my family is Italian, from Turin, and I remember when I was a little kid my granddad had an Autobianchi A112 Abarth. He always had the spicy version of the cheap city cars, which were always fun to travel in. My dad always liked cars too, so I guess I was influenced or indoctrinated right from the beginning.

Dad did some rallying when he was a young guy, and I heard all the stories growing up: rallying in a Fiat 500, and then an 850 Coupe, and then he had a big upgrade to a Renault 8 Gordini. So my dad always had cool cars around.

We’d go back to Italy for summer holidays and stuff, and he’d keep some kind of fun car there that we’d use each summer, so it was always exciting going back. We were living in Thailand, but in Italy we had a Fiat Ritmo Abarth, with 130 horsepower!

Then there was a real defining moment: I was probably 12 or 14 years old, around 1988, and my dad brought home a Ferrari Testarossa. It wasn’t ours,