Having recently read a post from Soumya Banerjee, with regards to the Garagistes in Formula 1 I thought it always amusing that a derogatory term first coined by Enzo Ferrari in the late 50's still had an impact in peoples minds today.
I believe Ferrari first used the term to dismiss those teams such as Cooper and Lotus who arrived on the scene with off the shelf engines (normally a Climax engine) mated to a Hewland gearbox and away they went. The full term he used was "Garagiste! Assembliatore! " meaning that teams did little more than assemble their cars in garages.
Another often used comment about Ferrari was that he constructed road cars to enable the team to afford to go racing rather than construct racing cars to enable people to want to buy the road cars. The ironic thing about this statement was the fact that the only reason that Colin Chapman designed and built the first Lotus road car in 1957 (the Lotus Elite) was to achieve the very same thing. Also, the Lotus elite was launched 10 years after Ferrari had built their first road going car in 1947.
A couple of interesting quotes I turned up from Enzo Ferrari are "Aerodynamics are for people who can't build engines" and one in relation to Coopers new mid-engine car "The horse should pull the cart not push it". These quotes suggest just how out of step Ferrari's thinking was in relation to the teams he clearly had little time for.
In 1961 in a combined effort to reduce speeds and attract big car makers back into the sport the governing body introduced the 1.5 litre engine era of which Ferrari were ideally placed to use their knowledge from the 1.5 litre v6 F2 cars to design and build an upgraded 1.5L 120' V6 engine. The mainly British based teams protested in the hope of being allowed to retain the 2.5 litre engines and then when this was not allowed were forced to struggle with the initially less powerful inline-4 Climax engine. Was this the first instance of what would become a long running feud between Ferrari and the "Garagiste" teams ??
In a sport that has ebbed and flowed through the various decades and regulation changes it is amusing that a derogatory term derived around 50 years ago is still with us. In the modern era, does it still apply? Max Mosley clearly had a vision of returning the sport further in that direction with the Cosworth engine deal but it was never going to catch on. Finally, what's the big deal about building your own engines anyway?
I believe Ferrari first used the term to dismiss those teams such as Cooper and Lotus who arrived on the scene with off the shelf engines (normally a Climax engine) mated to a Hewland gearbox and away they went. The full term he used was "Garagiste! Assembliatore! " meaning that teams did little more than assemble their cars in garages.
Another often used comment about Ferrari was that he constructed road cars to enable the team to afford to go racing rather than construct racing cars to enable people to want to buy the road cars. The ironic thing about this statement was the fact that the only reason that Colin Chapman designed and built the first Lotus road car in 1957 (the Lotus Elite) was to achieve the very same thing. Also, the Lotus elite was launched 10 years after Ferrari had built their first road going car in 1947.
A couple of interesting quotes I turned up from Enzo Ferrari are "Aerodynamics are for people who can't build engines" and one in relation to Coopers new mid-engine car "The horse should pull the cart not push it". These quotes suggest just how out of step Ferrari's thinking was in relation to the teams he clearly had little time for.
In 1961 in a combined effort to reduce speeds and attract big car makers back into the sport the governing body introduced the 1.5 litre engine era of which Ferrari were ideally placed to use their knowledge from the 1.5 litre v6 F2 cars to design and build an upgraded 1.5L 120' V6 engine. The mainly British based teams protested in the hope of being allowed to retain the 2.5 litre engines and then when this was not allowed were forced to struggle with the initially less powerful inline-4 Climax engine. Was this the first instance of what would become a long running feud between Ferrari and the "Garagiste" teams ??
In a sport that has ebbed and flowed through the various decades and regulation changes it is amusing that a derogatory term derived around 50 years ago is still with us. In the modern era, does it still apply? Max Mosley clearly had a vision of returning the sport further in that direction with the Cosworth engine deal but it was never going to catch on. Finally, what's the big deal about building your own engines anyway?