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When you think of Ferrari in Formula One, you probably don't (or shouldn't) think of modern, sponsor-sticker-strewn cars and Sebastian Vettel throwing (another) strop just because Lewis Hamilton is faster than him (again). Instead you think of blood-red paintwork, screaming 12-cylinder engines, and the legends of the great F1 race tracks. You could even be thinking of the star of this new film - the 1970 Ferrari 312B.
Ferrari 312B: Where The Revolution Begins is a new documentary which will be showing in selected cinemas in Ireland from November 2nd, and will be available on DVD, Blu-ray and as a download at a later date. The film attempts to tell two parallel stories; that of the tumultuous 1970 F1 season and the debut of the 312B, and the efforts of a dedicated band of modern-day enthusiasts to rebuild one of these ultra-rare race cars and drive it at the 2016 Monaco Historic Grand Prix.
The man who links both stories, and the man who originally created, designed and ran the car for old man Enzo himself, and who returns 46 years later to help rebuild and recreate his 12-cylinder baby, is Mauro Forghieri. Forghieri was both team manager and chief designer for Ferrari in the late sixties and through the seventies, and the man brave enough to say to Enzo Ferrari, after a winless period in the late sixties, "I think we have to turn the page a little..." Enzo was never a man to take criticism of his cars easily, but he agreed and so Forghieri began to sketch the 312B.
And literally sketch. As the man himself says, in his distinctive, gravelly tone, the 312B was a car "born only with the drafting table and the pencil. Made with the tape measure and hammer". Forghieri's original, faded pencil drawings are resurrected by the team set on rebuilding one of the cars, and they're a stark reminder that you don't actually need supercomputers and fluid dynamics to go like hell. Well, not when you have the man that famed racer Jacky Ickx describes as "the best engineer of his era" wielding the pencils and spanners.
46 years on, the team rebuilding the car (led by ex-F1 and Le Mans racer and winner Paolo Barilla) must call on Forghieri to help them bring his creation back to life. The car seems impossibly complex, even without the multiple computers and hybrid systems of today. The components for its flat-12, 3.0-litre, 460hp (allegedly) engine, when laid out, look like some sort of insane Meccano set, the mechanical equivalent of one of those 1,000-piece jigsaws of a plate of beans.
But little by little, the car comes back together, Forghieri smiling and thumping the back of one of the engineers as the flat-12 sparks to life in a test chamber. "She kicks, no?"
Forghieri is undoubtedly the true star of the film. A modern technocrat, compared to the old-fashioned autocrat that was Enzo Ferrari, Forghieri stands comparison with the more famous and lauded technical geniuses of his era - Colin Chapman, Bruce McLaren, Gordon Murray and Derek Gardner among them. Drivers of the day such as Jackie Stewart are on hand in the film to guide us through the 1970 season that promised so much excitement, but ended in tragedy when Jochen Rindt was killed at Monza. Ferrari would go on to win the Italian Grand Prix the next day, but lost the title - Jacky Ickx relieved that he wasn't able to overhaul Rindt's championship score by the end of the season, making the Austrian racer F1's only posthumous champion.
Forghieri's 312B, after a shaky start, would go on to power (in various forms) Ferrari to three drivers' titles and four manufacturers' crowns over the next decade, until ground effect aerodynamics rendered its glorious flat-12 engine obsolete.
That's a fate Forghieri is clearly enjoying avoiding. He may be old now, but he still looks lean, and the years roll away as the rebuilt 312B hits trouble in testing before the Monaco Historic. Forghieri owns the pitlane, barracking the small team that have built the car as if they were Enzo's lackeys, clearly frustrated that small problems with small parts are hindering progress, and that he can't squeeze another couple of testing laps out of the day. What would old man Enzo have said?
The 312B is a shatteringly beautiful, noisy piece of work, the sheer fury of its engine even able to make its creator jump in his seat when it's fired up in the pits. Director Andrea Marini deftly mixes historical footage with gorgeously crafted shots of the car as it is rebuilt and running again. But it is the car's creator - irascible, irritable, ingenious - that we long to see more of. A racer never changes his stripes, and the half-century hiatus between his glory days and today have not changed Forghieri a wit. It is as wonderful to see him praising and criticising, cajoling and celebrating, as it is to see his 312B circulating Monaco at speed once again.
Ferrari 312B: Where The Revolution Begins is on release from Nov 2nd, from Element Pictures Distribution.