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Tazio Nuvolari was almost forty when he definitively passed from motorcycling to car racing. He was born in 1892 in the province of Mantua and grew up in a family of cyclists and motorcyclists. Also for this reason, and because of the lower costs, until the 1920s he mainly raced with motorcycles. It was therefore in motorbikes that he began to make himself known, to then become very famous as a racing driver as successful as he was reckless, apparently lacking in the sense of danger and for this reason capable of things never seen before, or at least told about.
Seventy years after his death, he is still remembered by enthusiasts but also by races, circuits, brands and songs, such as the most famous, written in 1976 by Lucio Dalla: «When Nuvolari runs, when Nuvolari passes, people arrive in crowds and it spreads over the meadows; when Nuvolari runs, when Nuvolari passes, people wait for hours and hours for his arrival; and finally when he hears the noise, he jumps up and waves to him.’
Nuvolari signing autographs at Silverstone in 1950 (J. Wilds/Keystone/Getty Images)
In Europe, Nuvolari’s racing years coincided with the first large-scale research and development phase of the automobile and motorcycle industry. Sports racing served this development as today they represent the most advanced point of the sector, from which derive technologies and components that can be used to improve the means of common use. It was for these reasons that in 1924, after having upset the Italian races of the time by repeatedly beating more powerful bikes than his own, Nuvolari was hired by Bianchi to race and develop a new model of the company, the Freccia Celeste.
One of his best known victories dates back to the following year. In fact, that year Alfa Romeo made selections to find the replacement for Antonio Ascari (father of Alberto, Formula 1 world champion), who died in July in an accident in the French Grand Prix. Nuvolari applied but his trial didn’t last long and indeed, he risked ending up like the driver he was supposed to replace. “On the first lap he ended up straight in a meadow, he was thrown out of the car and fell eight meters,” Vittorio Jano, Alfa Romeo designer, later recounted. He ended up hospitalized with broken ribs, bruises and lacerations, but after just a week he returned to motorcycle racing and won the European Championship, not without suffering.
After that episode Bianchi prevented him from racing in the car, but Nuvolari continued to risk his life even on the motorbike. After an accident in a motorcycle race near Stuttgart, the German newspapers gave him up for dead, but he reappeared in public after a few days, a little bruised, denying the news that in the meantime had also reached Italy. He soon started winning again, so much so that the Italian press began to call him a “super champion” as up until then they had only done with the cyclist Costante Girardengo.
In the late 1920s the automotive sector continued to expand, as did sports racing, and attracted the greatest fascination. Car drivers were among the most popular and admired characters, for the way they combined courage, speed and technique driving vehicles never seen before, at least by ordinary people. After the successes obtained with motorcycles, Nuvolari therefore decided to move definitively into motor racing: there his diminutive, shrewd and combative figure soon established himself in the common imagination of the time, even abroad, where he was called “the little big man”.
In triumph after a victory in Northern Ireland (Fox Photos/Getty Images)
In 1928 he was the first driver to found his own team by buying cars from Bugatti and later from other Italian manufacturers. A few months later Enzo Ferrari did the same by founding Ferrari, which at the time raced with Alfa Romeo cars, of which Nuvolari was one of the first winning drivers.
At the time, the pilots took part in very different races, both on real circuits and on tracks drawn from the road system of the time, which as you can imagine was still in its infancy and mostly made up of dirt roads. There were races lasting one day or several days, they ran both day and night, and for this the pilots also had to be mechanics. Nuvolari had proved to be superior in this too as early as the 1920s, when he won the famous race on the Tigullio circuit in Liguria, crossing the finish line with a co-driver passed out next to him and with a car that had remained without a child seat and steering wheel, replaced by a wrench.
In the longer races the cars had two seats and the drivers had real mechanics next to them. One of his best-known mechanics was Decimo Compagnoni, who told a Rai broadcast in the 1950s how Nuvolari, at the peak of his career, won the 1933 Belgian Grand Prix: «Upon arrival he fainted, not from emotion but from fatigue. Because that car, a Maserati, to stay low and have more aerodynamics than the others, had a seat two inches high, without springs. In fact, then in the hotel he had sores on his butt from wobbling on that seat».
Compagnoni was one of the most important collaborators in Nuvolari’s victories, as was the second driver Giovanni Battista Guidotti, both protagonists of various victories. In 1931, in a time trial race on the circuit of the Three Provinces (Bologna, Pistoia and Modena) the car driven by Nuvolari was damaged by passing at high speed over a level crossing shortly after the start. The accelerator spring broke in the impact, revving the engine on its own. Compagnoni then slipped off the strap of his trousers and used it to adjust the pedal. Also in that way the two won the race by overtaking the Alfa Romeo driven by Enzo Ferrari by about thirty seconds.
The previous year, on the other hand, there had been the Mille Miglia remembered for the presence of the other great driver of the time, Achille Varzi, and for the “mock of the headlights off”. Nuvolari spent that race recovering the disadvantage accumulated on Varzi, who he reached only towards Peschiera del Garda, therefore a few kilometers from the finish. There are many and all different versions of what happened next: the fact is that Nuvolari turned off the headlights, either to simulate a breakdown or to hide from himself (other versions claim that he made them flash to invite Varzi to let him pass), and overcame him just before arriving in Brescia and therefore winning the tender.
Tazio Nuvolari in 1933 after a victory in Belfast (Chris Ware/Keystone/Getty Images)
It was also an era marked by the constant search for records and maximum speeds, given that man had never been so fast in his history of driving a vehicle. In the 1930s Nazi Germany formed a large industrial group by uniting its companies of the time under a single brand, Auto Union, whose symbol with four circles is still the Audi brand. One of the main figures of this group was the designer Ferdinand Porsche, considered a genius of the time, creator of the Volkswagen Beetle and founder of the company that still bears his name today. Porsche also said one of the most quoted phrases when speaking of Nuvolari: «he is the greatest racer of the past, present and future».
The group, financed by the Nazi regime to be the symbol of its industrial supremacy, quickly established itself at the forefront of the world automotive sector with inventions such as the first racing car with a 16-cylinder rear engine, i.e. a double power compared to the average of the era. Nuvolari was one of the drivers who raced for Auto Union, but he was also one of the few who managed to beat it driving the less fast Italian cars, with which he also took a much coveted record for the time.
In the first half of the 1930s, Auto Union had in fact set the road speed record, reaching 317 kilometers per hour with a 16-cylinder engine. In order to compete with that power, Alfa Romeo devised a car with two 8-cylinder engines, the 16C Bimotore. The power was thus equalized but with 13 quintals of weight it was almost impossible to maneuver it on the circuits, as Nuvolari noticed in the races which ended with wide gaps behind the Auto Unions, moreover driven by his rival Varzi. Before definitively shelving the Bimotore, however, Nuvolari, Alfa Romeo and Ferrari decided to at least try to break the top speed record on the road. They did it on the Lucca-Altopascio stretch of the Florence-Mare route, where they succeeded by exceeding 320 kilometers per hour.
Nuvolari at the wheel of an Auto Union in Donington (LaPresse)
In his automotive career, Nuvolari participated in 227 races, winning 59 and finishing on the podium 113 times. He won, among others, the 1933 24 Hours of Le Mans, three editions of the Mille Miglia, a Formula Indy race in the United States, two editions of the Targa Florio and the 1932 European Championship. He also took part in two editions of the 500 Miglia of Indianapolis, which however in both cases failed to conclude.
After the Second World War, at the age of almost sixty Nuvolari attempted to return to the wheel of a new model designed by Porsche for Cisitalia, which however was never used on the road due to economic reasons. In those years, between 1936 and 1946, he was also described as particularly affected by the death of his two sons, both eighteen, from illness. It was also said that following those two deaths he definitively lost all perception of risk, and that therefore many of the races he won and the accidents he continued to do were fueled by desperation. He died in Mantua on 11 August 1953 of a heart attack, three years after he ran his last race and without ever announcing his retirement from racing.
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2023-08-11 15:06:38
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