2023-06-25 11:34:39
On June 24, 1911 in Balcarce, Province of Buenos Aires, the greatest Formula One driver for 50 years and one of the most important in the history of motorsports was born, that day Juan Manuel Fangio was born.
Son of Italian immigrants Loreto Fangio and Herminia D’eramo, as a boy he excelled in sports, mainly soccer, from where he got his nickname “Chueco”, studies were not his forte, at age 11 he toured the workshops carriages and farm machinery to learn, so it was that he got his first job to help his parents.
In 1924 he got a job at a Ford agency, where he learned a lot about mechanics and the following year at Studebaker where he repaired engines, this was vital for his experience as a pilot in his relationship with official mechanics.
When he was chosen for the Balcarce team, it seemed that his future was soccer, but three events changed history: he was paid back wages with an “Overland”, Luis Finoccheto invited him to be his companion in a TC race and pneumonia cut him off. his sports career, when he finished his military service he set up his own workshop and began to participate in road races as a driver.
In 1940 he won the Argentine Road Tourism Championship, the first for Chevrolet, in 1941 he repeated the championship and participated in several continental competitions.
After the Second World War, Fangio also competed in the “National Mechanics” races, in 1948 his co-driver Urrutia died in an accident, for which reason he gradually abandoned road racing, in 1949 when he won the international race of Mar del Plata against European cars and drivers, he was appointed head of the Argentine delegation to compete in Italy.
In 1950 the great leap took place, he was hired by Alfa Romeo for the Formula One World Championship in which, winning 3 races, he was runner-up to Giuseppe Farina, but in 1951, also winning 3 races, he won the world championship.
In 1953 he went to Maserati in which he finished runner-up, then came the stage of “invincible” winning the championships of 1954, 55, 56 and 57 with Maserati, Mercedes and Ferrari.
In February 1958 on the occasion of the Cuban Grand Prix, Fangio was kidnapped by Fidel Castro to give a publicity coup to his movement, after 26 hours he was released, although Fangio did not consider himself kidnapped but had spent a few hours with “friends who they were pursuing a good cause” for this reason in 1981 he was the guest of honor of the Cuban government.
Fangio dedicated the rest of his life to business and humanitarian tasks, collaborated with the Automóvil Club Argentino and was named honorary president of Mercedes Benz Argentina, in that role he had a dubious performance when during the Argentine military dictatorship 14 employees of the internal union commission disappeared of the company, although he was never tried for it.
In 1979 in Balcarce, his hometown, the most important automobile museum in South America was inaugurated, where most of the cars he used are, including the wonderful “Silver Arrow”, several drivers such as Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna donated their own cars collection for the museum, with poor health since 1980, died on July 17, 1995.
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