The Italians:
Ferrari's Prancing Horse badge is a WWI pilot symbol. He was awarded an honor from the Fascist regime of Cavaliere dell’ordine della Corona d’Italia. With the second world war taking place and the car racing battles were stopped, Ferrari then became involved with war production. Enzo was shunned for his “reputedly too-enthusiastic support of the old Mussolini regime”. After the war, the CIA freed mafia captives and handed them entire cities, like Turin. It was a plan to counter the communists parties and so the Ferrari company flourished in the post-war economy of the 1950s, so did Fiat, Lancia, Alfa Romeo, etc. laundering the mafia's money. Lambo didn't get his money from the mafia tho, well not at first. I say that cuz I doubt they didn't knock on his door at one time or another. No siree, Mr Lambo money came from the tractor he sold with stolen tank engines.
On a side note, when Enzo Ferrari declared the infamous "aerodynamics are for people who can't build engines", it was after the silver arrows retired from motor racing. Leaving him to race the Britsh garagiste who stole the blue-prints from the Germans but were (after WWII - and still are) quality challenged. He went on believing "that the role of the chassis was to carry around the engine, and that if the engine was a Ferrari engine, it would as often as not win the World Championship. There is evidence today that this belief is as robust as Catholicism, deep down inside Ferrari. The shock of discovering that the new aerodynamics of the 1970's made it worthwhile compromising the engine to achieve superior chassis performance, was quickly followed by an even harder lesson to bear. The turbo-era suddenly transformed the science of Formula 1 engines from the attainment of the highest possible RPM, into the computer control of the highest possible cylinder pressures. It is no coincidence that Bosch equipped the first engines (BMW and TAG) to power "turbo-World Champions". When the Japanese brought their detailed and rigorous analytical approach to engine development, Ferrari had to face the fact that not only was the engine no longer the dominant part of the car, but also that Ferrari no longer necessarily built the most powerful engines." Peter Wright
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