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

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.

Reviews

[Sembray]

4.5

As a passionate lover of Italian cars, this book was always going to be right up my street (pun intended). Grimsdale takes the reader on a panoramic journey across the golden age of Italian automobiles, a time when they dominated the world's racetracks as well as redefining automotive style and elegance. The narrative is fast-paced and never less than thrilling, and accessible for those without prior knowledge in the field. There's also a cast of endearingly eccentric characters such as Enzo Ferrari, Gianni Agnelli and Tazio Nuvolari who lend an emotional element and generous lashings of humour to the story. This is a fascinating, well-researched and joyous entry through an unlikely renaissance, and may well result in the reader joining me and the countless numbers of Italian car obsessives united by a shared appreciation for these beautiful machines and the visionaries who produced and raced them.

[Daniel Ceán-Bermúdez Pérez]

I had recently read High Performance: When Britain Ruled the Roads, Peter Grimsdale’s previous book on a subject similar to Superveloce: How Italian Cars Conquered the World. In fact, the approach and structure are virtually identical, the main difference being that this time the focus is on Italian manufacturers and the period covered is considerably longer. As a result, while the book as a whole is of a similar length, each chapter is shorter, although that does not make them any less interesting.

Once again, the best thing about the book is the author’s very fluent narrative style. He has a great ability to link subjects and characters together, giving the text a strong sense of continuity as he moves from one story to another. As with the book devoted to British manufacturers, I found the sections dealing with motor racing the most interesting and, naturally, the ones I am most familiar with, while the parts covering production cars allowed me to discover characters and details I did not know about.

Overall, this is another highly recommended book for motoring enthusiasts, particularly those looking for a broad overview of the evolution of Italian manufacturers and teams throughout the 20th century. I would also say that it is an excellent starting point for anyone wishing to explore some of the stories it tells in greater depth through other books, such as those mentioned in the bibliography.

The only negative point, albeit a fairly minor one, is that I was struck by the fact that this is the second book in just a few months to state that Alfonso de Portago won an Olympic bronze medal in bobsleigh. In fact, he finished fourth, so I assume that the mistake appears in one of the bibliographical sources used by both authors and has subsequently been repeated because it was used as a reference.

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Hace poco había leído 'High Performance: When Britain Ruled the Roads', la anterior obra de Peter Grimsdale con similar temática a 'Superveloce: How Italian Cars Conquered the World'. De hecho, el planteamiento y desarrollo es prácticamente idéntico, con la diferencia de que en esta ocasión el protagonismo es para los fabricantes italianos y la extensión del periodo de tiempo analizado resulta bastante superior. Eso hace que, al tener el total del libro una longitud parecida, cada capítulo sea más breve aunque no por ello dejan de ser siempre interesantes.

De nuevo, lo mejor es la forma muy fluida de narrar que tiene el autor, con gran habilidad para ir encadenando temas y personajes dándole continuidad al texto mientras va pasando de una historia a otra. Lo mismo que en el dedicado a los fabricantes ingleses, la parte relativa a la competición es la que me interesó más y, también, la que más conozco mientras que la correspondiente a los coches de serie me ha permitido descubrir personajes y detalles que no conocía.

En conjunto, se trata de otro libro muy recomendable para los aficionados al mundo del motor, en particular para los que quieran tener una visión general de la evolución de las marcas y equipos italianos a lo largo del siglo XX. Diría que es, además, un excelente punto de partida para luego profundizar en algunas de las historias que cuenta a través de otras obras como las que menciona en la bibliografía. Como único detalle negativo, aunque sea bastante anecdótico, me ha llamado la atención que este sea el segundo libro en poco meses en el que se dice que Alfonso de Portago ganó una medalla de bronce olímpica en bobsleigh. En realidad terminó cuarto así que supongo que en alguna de las fuente bibliográficas usadas por los dos autores se comete ese error y este se va reproduciendo al usarla como base de consulta.