Superveloce: How Italian Cars Conquered the World

by Peter Grimsdale

In 1950, at the first Formula One Grand Prix in Britain after World War II, 150,000 spectators, including the royal family, watch in dismay as Italy's Alfa Romeos take the first three places – ahead of seven more Italian Maseratis. In Paris, at the Salon d'Auto, Pininfarina's breathtakingly stylish Lancias, driven form Turin by the designer and his son, are denied entry. Parked outside, they nevertheless steal the show.  How can it be that Italy, pummelled into submission by Allied bombs, is already setting new standards of speed and style that leave the rest of the world for dust?

The answers lie deep in Italy's cultural heritage, in historic links between art and machine going back to Leonardo da Vinci. In Superveloce, Peter Grimsdale traces a century of Italian design genius and the rise of its great automotive dynasties, Ferrari, Farina, Maserati and Fiat's Agnellis.  We see the lives of fiercely charismatic and competitive drivers like Ascari, Campari and Nuvolari, and explore the mystery of how a nation that never had an industrial revolution like Britain and France set standards of design innovation that other nations struggled to match. 

Grimsdale takes the reader on a journey of discovery through Italian history, design, speed and beautiful, beautiful cars.

Genres: Nonfiction, Cars, Sports

368 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 5, 2025

About the author

I grew up in Sheffeld, attended a variety of schools including Bedales in Hampshire and East Brunswick High in New Jersey. I went on to Sussex and Georgetown Universities where I read American Studies and started writing short stories. I joined the BBC in 1980 and worked on everything from Crimewatch UK to a history of the Falklands War. I also did a spell in Enva Hoxha's Albania on a secret filming assignment about an MI5/CIA mission there that went horribly wrong. In 1984 I was sent to Sri Lanka for the Real Lives series to report on the uprising against the Tamils and the diary I kept of that time became the basis for Perfect Night. I moved on to Channel 4 where I was head of History,Religion and Features and indulged my passion for cars in several programme commissions. I also found myself in charge of Big Brother 3, the one that gave the world Jade Goody. After a brief foray into the brave new world of Yahoo (source of the sacking scene in Perfect Night), I returned to TV as a freelancer but determined to write. Perfect Night was the result. My two biggest infuences were and still are my wife Stephanie Calman (see Badmothersclub.com)and my agent Mark Lucas who showed what thriller writing was all about.
Just Watch Me came about after a bad day at Gatwick Airport discovering that my then five year old daughter's passport had expired and instead of heading for Tobago I found myself in Durham where the only passport office in the land would give me a replacement over the counter. Set in Britain Tobago and Afghanistan, it tells the story of a man who loses his family and has to go on the run while he tries to find out why.
My last two books Battlefield 3 - The Russian (with Andy McNab)and Battlefield 4 - Countdown to War have been written in association with Electronic Arts, publishers of the Battlefield global game franchise. To EA's great credit they gave me the space to develop an autonomous story using some the games' characters and situations as launch pads for stand-alone narratives. You do not have to be a 'gamer' (I'm not - there, I've confessed)to enjoy them, in fact you don't need to know anthing at all about the games or how it relates to the books. But if you find them via the games they should add to your appreciation of the characters who pass through.