Page 18 - Ferrari in America

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A M E R I C A
I N F E R R A R I multiclass team in the East, whereas Ferrari stalwarts—John Edgar, John von Neumann,
and Tony Parravano—all fit that description in Southern California, where the racing was
much more competitive.
A Cunningham Jaguar D-type had won the 12 Hours of Sebring in 1955, but in 1956
the Ferrari factory team entered what was America’s top road race for the first time. The
outing was a complete success, with Ferrari’s new 860 Monza 3.5-liter, four-cylinder
cars finishing first and second, with Fangio/Castellotti and Musso/Schell. Chinetti
sold the Sebring winner that year to John von Neumann, and Phil Hill towed it back to
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Los Angeles. On the way he stopped to visit an old buddy, Norm Carkeek, who was in
the army in Texas. While he was there, the 860 sat on the street on an open trailer. A
footnote to Sebring 1956 was that Chinetti had entered a Ferrari 500 TR that did not
arrive at the track.
Two of the drivers named for Sebring in 1956 would not have meant much to the casual
race fan: Gleb Derujinsky and Bill Helburn. Derujinsky had raced a Jaguar and Elva of his
own, but in 1955 had raced Ferraris owned by Chinetti clients Bob Said and Fon de Portago.
Derujinsky’s father, Gleb Sr., was from Russia, and the family was related to composer
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Gleb Sr. was educated in Russia and Paris, and held degrees in
both law and fine arts. He emigrated to the United States in 1919 and had an illustrious
career as a sculptor, including creating busts of Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt,
and John Kennedy. He also portrayed people in the arts, including fellow countrymen and
composers Sergei Rachmaninoff and Sergei Prokofiev, and American actress Lillian Gish.
All his work was done from life and is represented in many major museums.
Derujinsky Jr. and Bill Helburn made their mark in photography in New York, at a
time of revolutionary change in fashion and advertising photography, led by people like
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Richard Avedon and Irving Penn. Derujinsky was interested in photography as early as
age six. By the time he was a teenager, he was a member of the prestigious Camera Club
of New York, where he met such masters as Edward Steichen and Alfred Stieglitz. After
serving in World War II, Derujinsky used a loan through the GI Bill to set up his own studio
in New York. To continue the car connection, his first cover was for Collier’s magazine,
owned by the Collier family that had done so much to revive road racing in the United
States before the war, and in the immediate postwar period. Derujinsky was able to sell
his services to such publications as Esquire, Look, Life, Glamour, Town and Country, and
The New York Times Magazine.
He ultimately attracted the attention of legendary art director Alexey Brodovitch at
Harper’s Bazaar. There, he worked from 1950 to 1968 under editors Carmel Snow and Diana
Vreeland. He was known for his shoots in exotic locations, perhaps his most famous being
a trip around the world with models Ruth Neumann and Nena von Schlebrügge. It was part
of a promotion during Pan Am’s 1958 introduction of the Boeing 707, the first American
passenger jet. His work from this trip showed the models on a mountaintop in Turkey, at
seaside harbors in China, and posing in the Nara Deer Park in Japan. Other stops on the
©2024 David Bull Pubitinerary included Greece, Spain, and Thailand. In 1958, Derujinsky was at the top of his
game, and that year his work at the Paris couture collections became a 25-page spread
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