The rise to power

Ultimately it was the sound. Higher rpm delivered smoothly thanks to smaller, lighter reciprocating parts and an even firing order, plus the cachet of costly complexity, added to its appeal. But only when trusted engineering lieutenant Luigi Bazzi roared off did Enzo Ferrari break into a smile.

Just prior to holing his driving career by slinking from the 1924 French Grand Prix, Enzo was beguiled by Delage’s groundbreaking 2-litre; and though no match for the supercharged straight-eight Alfa Romeo P2 that he was meant to drive, that ‘song’ never left him.

Now, 23 years later, he had a V12 of his own. That it sat in a rudimentary chassis sans bodywork was of no importance. Only that beating heart mattered. With a chirrup on the cold cobbles of Maranello’s courtyard, he accelerated along the three-mile straight to Formigine, as his small team held its breath.

The harshest winter in living memory and an ambitious project running 12 months late had strained relationships. Engineers Giuseppe Busso and Aurelio Lampredi had quarrelled about how best to interpret and implement the absent Giaocchino Colombo’s schemes and sketches for this oversquare – a bore and stroke of55x52.5mm – 1.5-litre. The atmosphere was tense on March 12, 1947.

The car coasted in upon its return. It was nothing without the noise. Bazzi spotted the oil streak that had caused Ferrari to switch off. Offending cam-cover bolt tightened, he took his turn at the 125’s wheel. Now it dawned on Ferrari, face still stinging but ears no longer buffeted: it sounded as good if not better from outside the cockpit.

He wrote in his 1963 memoirs “It was forecast that I was bringing about my downfall, the experiment being just