► Ian Fraser takes a ride with a Ferrari test driver
► Hilarious tale of fearing for his life
► A 1983 archive gem from CAR+
Pietro came highly recommended. He also came in a red Ferrari Mondial Quattrovalvole into which he beckoned me for a couple of laps of the Fiorano test track, a few miles up the road from the Maranello factory. Pietro, the public relations man told me, spoke no English but was widely respected in the research and development department for his skill and expertise at the wheel. I would be in good hands, he reassured me as he closed the Ferrari’s door and slapped the roof twice in time-honoured manner to signal Pietro, who I could now see had flashing, demonical eyes and molars that looked like Dracula fangs, to drop the clutch and GO! My yellow streak, I knew, was beginning to show luminescent through the back of my shirt. Just wait a couple of months and I could drive the thing myself in Britain (CAR Feb); why be driven here?
I had just decided that I did not want to ride with this man, least of all in a red Ferrari, and was groping for the door-handle to evacuate the car when it erupted forward, pinning me hard into the seat with accelerative g-forces. The buildings and the other cars and the pedestrians were suddenly a blur. I hastily decided to grope for the seat belt instead. The new, deep-breathing V8 engine in the back was roaring like an Indian elephant given Madras curry powder instead of peanuts. Up through the gears —first, second, third. Sliding around the corners, blowing the horn, bigger and better blurring; terminal panic, knee joints turned to rubber solution, sweat forced its way out from under my fingernails and moistening the yellow streak, too. Odd, that: lots of sweat but a very dry mouth. When we stopped at the factory gate, to be officially released onto an unsuspecting world, my fumbling hands could not get the belt buckle undone. My intention was to leap from the projectile while Pietro was distracted by the gatekeeper. Too late. Into gear again, more mechanical howling and we were doing 100mph in and out of the motor scooters, the bikes, the Fiat 500s and the trucks. Drained of 100 octane panic, I resorted to anger. Anger at myself, the World Champion Worst Passenger and the Great Yellow Streaker, for being gullible enough to get into this kind of position again, for repeating the mistake of being a passenger in anything, let alone a Ferrari with a demon driving. Cowering, cringing, croaking as only a totally dry throat can, my whole life was flashing before my eyes. And all I could see was myself making the same stupid, dumb, crazy mistake over and over again. This was clearly it. This was the last stupid, dumb, crazy mistake because I was going to be killed at the hands of some demented Italian at the wheel of a 150mph car. No way out, no way of telling him that I would pay him hundreds of thousands of lire just to stop and let me escape.
Through the gate and onto the test track in a cloud of rubber dust stripped from the tyres. The worst was yet to come and I knew it. Pietro, oblivious of my almost total lack of Italian, was chattering away and waving one arm around when it had some spare time between changing into ever-faster gears. He was clearly about to get on with the business of really demonstrating the Quattrovalvole’s superiority over every other car and, the way things were going, over him as well. I tried to faint but it didn’t work; getting smaller in the seat was equally useless.
The track, purpose-built for testing road and race cars, incorporates the cruelest, most difficult corners from racing circuits all around the world; exact replicas of the ones you see on television news where the famous racing driver meets his maker (or a surgeon who is good at jig-saw puzzles).
Our direction of travel was no longer forwards. The snaking bitumen was passing under the passenger’s door against which I was pinned, the nose of the car pointing into the grass. Pietro The Recommended was twirling the steering wheel every which way but straight-ahead, changing gear here and there and tormenting the 240horsepower with the accelerator pedal. Twitch and the world started approaching through the driver’s door window. Twitch again and we were pointing straight down a great ribbon of tarmac, which was being consumed by the Ferrari at a terrifying rate, the speedometer needle surging past 135mph and still accelerating like Argentinian inflation.
Suddenly, my earlier, urgent request for Divine intervention was answered. I trawled from the recesses of my numbed brain the word ‘basta’ — it means ‘enough’ though I have previously used it only to stop Italian waiters ladling more food onto my plate. A sort of token word spoken by the greedy to pretend they are not. ‘Basta! Basta!’ I proclaimed, my tongue as dry as a camel’s hoof. But Pietro had at last caught up with the fact that I did not speak Italian and was about to air his knowledge of English: ‘Fasta! Fasta!’ he joyously repeated. ‘Si, si’. The strain was too much. I turned as limp as a fiver in a washing machine. Obviously the end was near: we were doing maybe 145mph and the sharp corner which, by international agreement, is at the end of every long straight everywhere in the world, was already upon us. What a way to die! The accelerator must have stuck open and the fool conducting me to eternity didn’t know what to do. This would be a very important accident. They’d talk about it around here for years to come, after taking at least a week to find all the bits.
Pietro suddenly woke up and pressed very hard on the brake pedal and slammed the gear lever around a bit. We didn’t slow down in the usual way: we just abruptly arrived at a much lower speed then went sideways around the corner with the tyres and engine rehearsing for a role at La Scala. To avoid further implied encouragement I averted my eyes from Pietro The Recommended but he needed none. ‘Buono, eh? Buono?’ How to answer and testify to my true inner feelings? If I said ‘No buono’ he’d think I was unimpressed and would be compelled by pride to try even harder. Yet if I said ‘Si, buono’ that may be regarded as my absolute approval and would encourage him to continue with this torture. I opted for agreement with his views and he seemed awfully pleased. No slowing down, though, just steady, relentless piling-on of stark, unimaginable blood-curdled terror. Then it was all over. Just like that. Pietro, during one of his flashy and fast gearchanges, glimpsed his watch and was overcome with panic. Flat out along the track, out through the exit gate, in among the cycles, the motor-scooters, the Fiat 500s and the camions, which had regrouped since we routed them earlier, scattering chickens and pedestrians like an ’80s version of Toad of Toad Hall. A desperate scorching avoidance of a truckload of ceramic tiles — a local speciality — but now I was calm and relaxed, feeling safe. In through the factory gate and back to where my colleagues were waiting apprehensively, slithering to a stop just long enough for me to scramble clear. With an anxious wave, Pietro The Recommended and his Ferrari were converted into a red haze in the distance. ‘Good heavens, man, weren’t you terrified?’ asked Mr Editor Cropley. ‘At first, yes, but on the way back he was really great. No safer passenger seat on earth than one next to an Italian driver who has discovered he’s a couple of minutes late for lunch. He’ll always be terribly fast and determined but he certainly will not risk an accident that might delay him further.’