The section on automotive legends has been rather dead for a while. There’s been plenty of other stuff to write about, but also, anyone featured in this section should be a real legend. And although some may contest it, I really don’t think there’s any doubt that the man who not only has the most elegant name in the car industry but also, in typical Italian style, dresses better than the rest of the industry combined, is a true legend. Without Luca, I’d claim that not only would we have missed out on some legendary Ferrari models, but we may actually not have Ferrari left as a brand anymore. And a certain Michael Schumacher would probably have had a far less illustrous career as well!

Luca di Montezemolo (LdM) was born in Bologna in northern Italy in 1947. As you would suspect, the name has an aristocratic background with his family being descendants of an aristocrat family that had served the Royal House of Savoy over generations, long before Italy became a nation as we know it today. LdM studied law in Rome and New York and did a bit of racing in minor Italian teams, and somehow Enzo Ferrari noticed him and hired him to Ferrari in 1973 as his assistant. Luca obviously made a quick and good impression as shortly thereafter, he was appointed head of Scuderia Ferrari, the company’s F1 team, that he helped to two world championship titles in 1975 and 1977, both years with Niki Lauda as driver. His accomplishments were certainly noticed by the bosses at Fiat, who owned Ferrari at the time and made sure LdM was given even more responsibility over the years.

Ferrari is a unique brand in the tight connection between the F1 team and the road-going cars, where the sale of the latter finance the cost of the former, but also where sales of the road-going cars show a strong correlation to the success of the F1 team. When the team does badly, less people buy road cars. And in the late 80’s, especially after the Commandante Enzo Ferrari’s death in 1988 (obviously another car legend that you can read more about here), the team was far from successful, making the whole brand vulnerable. Fiat’s president Gianni Agnelli realized the danger and in 1991 appointed di Montezemolo, no doubt based on his background in the F1 team, as president of Ferrari.

To call Agnelli’s decision a good one is an understatement. What the Ferrari F1 team accomplished under Luca’s leadership in the late 90’s and 00’s is nothing short of sensational. He quickly implemented a number of changes, appointing Niki Lauda as the team’s consultant and later, Jean Todt as team manager. Subsequently between 1999 and 2008, the team went on to win no less than eight constructors’ world championships and five driver’s titles with Michael Schumacher, who also won a total of 72 races while at Ferrari.

In parallel however, di Montezemolo was confronted with piles of debt that Ferrari had taken on in previous years, and knew that any success depended on reducing the debt burden and hence on selling more road cars. And so in parallel to making the F1 team successful, Ferrari also worked on a long list of new road cars that would reach the market from the early 90’s until LdM stepped down from Ferrari in 2014. These include legendary models as the F50 (1995), Enzo (2002) and of course LaFerrari (2013), but they were also complemented by more “volume” cars like the 355 and F360, the (not universally loved) California, the 458, and many many more.

Opinions on which among these are the real great ones will of course vary, also in terms of money as there is a couple of zero’s between the cheapest and the most expensive on the list. If you ask the car and Evo legend Chris Harris, today with his own pod- and videocast, it’s the 458, which to him is the best GT in the world and the best representative of the LdM generation of cars. He recently made a very nice road video that explains why, driving from the UK down to see LdM in Bologna this winter, in his grey 458. Together with his friend Manish Pandey, he’s also just finished a film on LdM’s career called “Luca – seeing red”, that you can catch on various media.

In 2014 di Montezemolo resident as president and CEO of Ferrari, and it’s no big secret that this was a consequence of Sergio Marcchione taking over as CEO at Fiat. Marcchione and LdM didn’t see eye to eye neither on Ferrari’s future, nor on clothing style, and Luca chose to end his legendary car career there, moving on to head the Italian bid for the 2024 Olympics. He was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 2015, and in his speech at the ceremony, chose to give credit for a large part of his achievements to Michael Schumacher who he said “is fighting his greatest battle” – and as far as we know, still does.

Without taking anything away from Schumi, di Montezemolo’s role in the development of Ferrari’s F1 team and the Ferrari brand over more than 30 years cannot be overestimated, and with with Lewis Hamilton taking over the wheel from Carlos Sainz, it certainly feels like the interest in the Italian team is greater now than in quite a few years. I’m sure that from his residence in his native Bologna, his flat in Rome, or one of his sailing and motor yachts, Luca will be watching closely how the team does. Doing so, he doesn’t need to worry any longer about the survival of Ferrari. The stock price evolution over the last years should put any such worries to rest, and when it was confirmed that Ferrari had signed Lewis, it rose 10% overnight…