Page 13 - Ferrari in America

avid Bu
Ferrari and Chinetti’s collaboration deepened. In New York, he received a letter from
Ferrari dated December 23, 1948. It contained one paragraph: “We hereby authorize you
to represent us for the sales of our cars in the North American countries.” It was signed
by Ferrari with his usual purple ink. Chinetti was now the exclusive importer of Ferraris in
France, Switzerland, and North America.
Earlier that fall, an event had taken place that would benefit Chinetti greatly. The SCCA
trips to Indianapolis grew, and included members from other parts of the country besides
the Northeast. Sports cars had become more common since the war, and were about to be
24 David Bull Publishing
even more plentiful. The foreign car market in the United States at the time was primarily
British. When the British pound was devalued from $4.03 to $2.80 in 1949, the price of
an MG or Jaguar was effectively lowered by 30 percent. What had been a trickle of sports
cars coming into the country became a torrent.
Even before the devaluation, the main subject at the annual SCCA gatherings in
Indianapolis was when the club was going to hold a race. At their annual cocktail party
and dinner the night before the 1948 Indianapolis 500, a law student from Youngstown,
Ohio, Cameron Argetsinger, made a presentation to the group. He announced his plans
for a real road race, on public roads, around a hamlet at the foot of Seneca Lake in Upstate
New York named Watkins Glen, where the Argetsinger family had a second home. The
SCCA was now in the racing business.
One issue would become a stumbling block for the growth of American road racing:
The SCCA rules confined it to amateur racers—no professionals allowed—which was not
unusual in this era. Just to cite two examples, the US Lawn Tennis Association and the
Amateur Athletic Union had similar rules for tennis and track and field. Over the years,
ways to circumvent this rule in SCCA racing would become common, but it would be more
©2024 David Bull Publishin
than a decade before racers could earn money without being barred from SCCA races,
and before road racers, and the more highly publicized American professional oval racers,
would race against each other.
This must have been puzzling for Luigi Chinetti, who had come from a system where
people could make a living by racing cars. Chinetti was busy in Europe in 1948 and was
not present at Watkins Glen. The race itself was a success, and another was scheduled to
take place at Bridgehampton on Long Island in June 1949.
Interestingly, Chinetti would enter only one SCCA race in his career as a driver, even
though he continued to race for five more years abroad after road racing began at Watkins
Glen in 1948.
L E G E N D
F E R R A R I 1949
Back in Los Angeles, Willet Brown may have welcomed the Ferrari, but another of Lee’s
Italian choices did not go down as well. A January 10, 1949, telegram says, “DO NOT
SEND LAMBRETTA SCOOTER= WILLET BROWN=”
©2024 David Bull PubT H E O F B I R T H 95