Luca di Montezemolo, every mention

Ferrari: What happens when you staple a luxury brand to a sports team? (Audio) · Acquired Apr 14, 2026 · 75 mentions

• ▶ 28:06 David Rosenthal So in our research, I spoke to Luca di Montezemolo, the legendary Ferrari chairman who would ultimately succeed Enzo and really, in many ways, be his heir, as we will tell in this story.
• ▶ 28:19 Ben Gilbert Important to note, different Luca than the Luca who wrote the book, David, that most of this narrative is based on.
• ▶ 28:26 David Rosenthal And I asked Montezemolo, you know, you knew Enzo probably as deeply and as well as just about anybody who's still alive today.
• ▶ 29:11 David Rosenthal Montezemolo confirmed when I asked him.
• ▶ 1:27:36 David Rosenthal Luca di Montezemolo.
• ▶ 1:27:39 David Rosenthal But before we tell Luca's story, now is a great time to thank our longtime friend of the show, ServiceNow.
• ▶ 1:29:10 Ben Gilbert Okay, so David, Luca de Montezemolo, at least the first act of Luca, anyway.
• ▶ 1:29:17 David Rosenthal Of Luca's story, yes.
• ▶ 1:29:41 David Rosenthal Luca.
• ▶ 1:29:42 David Rosenthal So Montezemolo, to many of you listening, is already a living legend.
• ▶ 1:29:47 David Rosenthal I mean, as much as anyone in Ferrari history besides Enzo, Luca de Montezemolo is Ferrari.
• ▶ 1:30:28 David Rosenthal So Luca was born in 1947, the same year that the modern Ferrari commenced operations.
• ▶ 1:30:52 David Rosenthal So Luca grows up almost like a member of the Agnelli family.
• ▶ 1:31:00 David Rosenthal And Luca comes to develop a close relationship with Gianni.
• ▶ 1:31:09 David Rosenthal So in 1970, young Luca moves to New York City to go off to study international law at Columbia Law School.
• ▶ 1:31:41 David Rosenthal But this is how Luca starts in motorsport.
• ▶ 1:31:43 David Rosenthal And so, that one fateful day in 1971, Luca, the rally car driver, is a guest on this popular call-in talk radio show, and an audience member calls in to basically accost Luca, and
• ▶ 1:32:07 David Rosenthal Kind of much like the Pope in 1957 starts just laying into Luca, this caller, talking about how motor racing is evil, it's dangerous, it's bad for the environment.
• ▶ 1:32:20 David Rosenthal And Luca, impassioned, rises to the occasion, and he gives this passionate defense of motor racing.
• ▶ 1:33:07 David Rosenthal And literally the quote, Luca told me that this is what Enzo told the radio station.
• ▶ 1:33:19 David Rosenthal So Luca and Enzo meet, and Enzo says to him, I like you.
• ▶ 1:33:44 David Rosenthal You don't have to ask Luca twice here.
• ▶ 1:33:52 David Rosenthal Now, of course, at some point along the way here, Enzo also learns of Luca's connection to the Agnelli family.
• ▶ 1:34:22 David Rosenthal So Luca does, he comes back, he reports.
• ▶ 1:34:45 David Rosenthal So Luca reports all this back to Enzo, and Enzo's like, okay, great.
• ▶ 1:35:25 David Rosenthal So Luca goes, he observes a race, and he calls Enzo up and he says, hey, look, I advise that we just take the cars home
• ▶ 1:35:43 David Rosenthal And Luca's like, the issue is that the sport has changed.
• ▶ 1:36:08 David Rosenthal I'm gonna make you, Luca, the team manager of the Ferrari Formula One team, and your mandate is to fix this.
• ▶ 1:36:23 Ben Gilbert And this is amazing because this is quite the quick promotion for Luca.
• ▶ 1:36:48 David Rosenthal Oh, Luca has this great, great quote on the nature of the connection between Ferrari's performance on the track and the business selling road cars.
• ▶ 1:37:25 David Rosenthal So Luca comes in as team manager and he revamps the team.
• ▶ 1:37:37 David Rosenthal he goes out and recruits Niki Lauda to come in as their number one driver, and in 1975, with the new team, the new approach, Luca's manager, Niki Lauda wins the driver's championship for Ferrari, and Ferrari wins the constructors…
• ▶ 1:38:00 David Rosenthal Luca is now revered across Italy.
• ▶ 1:38:14 Ben Gilbert And the funniest thing is imagining as you describe these conversations that Luca's off doing stuff
• ▶ 1:39:04 David Rosenthal But he needs Luca, the young guy, to come in and change the culture.
• ▶ 1:39:22 David Rosenthal So he starts to get a little jealous of young Luca.
• ▶ 1:40:17 David Rosenthal Luca still believes in him though.
• ▶ 1:40:22 David Rosenthal I think they truly do always kind of love and respect each other, but all of this combines Luca can't stay at Ferrari.
• ▶ 1:40:32 David Rosenthal So they ultimately decide it's better if Luca leaves
• ▶ 1:40:42 David Rosenthal He remains on the board of Ferrari, Luca does, but he goes day-to-day to Turin and kind of closer to the Anieli Empire.
• ▶ 1:40:49 David Rosenthal And I think Enzo thinks that he's going to still have a spy now in Fiat with Luca, which maybe he does, maybe he doesn't, but sadly this is another tragedy.
• ▶ 1:41:06 David Rosenthal During Enzo's life, they had this great moment together, and for the rest of Enzo's life, there's some ups and downs, but mostly the Ferrari glory on the racetrack is gone, and doesn't return until Luca returns after Enzo's death.
• ▶ 1:41:22 Ben Gilbert Much later, and there's this glorious, amazing return of Luca, and there's this unbelievable run in Formula One, and the Ferrari road car business becomes stronger than ever, but basically none of it in...
• ▶ 1:47:26 David Rosenthal And how much Luca di Montezemolo transformed it when he came back and became the chairman.
• ▶ 1:47:56 David Rosenthal Just as one example, Ferrari during these years before Luca comes back, Ferrari produced 7000 Testarosas over the seven years that the Testarosa was in production.
• ▶ 1:49:17 David Rosenthal Luca comes back.
• ▶ 1:49:34 David Rosenthal And so, when it comes to this, Gianni Agnelli finally calls up Luca and says, it's time for you to return.
• ▶ 1:49:51 David Rosenthal And Luca di Montezemolo returns to become chairman of Ferrari.
• ▶ 1:50:08 David Rosenthal So at this point, when Gianni calls Luca back, he's been gone from the day-to-day at Ferrari for almost 15 years.
• ▶ 1:50:32 David Rosenthal And then the reason that Luca couldn't come back to take over Ferrari as soon as Enzo died was he had become the organizer and president of the Italia 90 World Cup.
• ▶ 1:50:49 David Rosenthal And Luca organized the whole thing.
• ▶ 1:51:24 David Rosenthal So the first thing Montezemolo does when he knows he's going to return to take over Ferrari after Enzo, he goes and he buys a three 48, the flagship Ferrari sports car at the time, just to sort of see the state of things.
• ▶ 1:51:46 David Rosenthal And Luca's actual quote on this is
• ▶ 1:53:18 David Rosenthal And so Luca comes back and says, we gotta fix this.
• ▶ 1:53:34 David Rosenthal Luca has the test drivers at Ferrari go out and buy a Honda NSX and do like his own version of the Pepsi challenge, like
• ▶ 1:54:26 David Rosenthal So how's Luca gonna turn this around?
• ▶ 1:55:06 David Rosenthal Luca goes out and recruits
• ▶ 1:55:23 David Rosenthal Michael Schumacher, Ferrari number one driver, and it takes a couple years for Luca and the team to turn this around, but this is just absolute domination that they unleash on the field.
• ▶ 1:56:01 David Rosenthal In total, under Montezemolo's tenure, Ferrari wins 19 Drivers' and Constructors' Championships, which is more than Enzo.
• ▶ 1:57:00 David Rosenthal And this absolutely was a hallmark of Montezemolo's turnaround.
• ▶ 1:58:12 Ben Gilbert Luca massively cut production.
• ▶ 1:58:21 Ben Gilbert By 1993, just two years later, Luca brought this down to 2300.
• ▶ 1:58:49 David Rosenthal We need to not just fix the myth of Ferrari, but we need to protect it, and this was Luca's third and most important priority, the myth.
• ▶ 1:59:01 David Rosenthal Luca came from a very different background and life experience than Enzo.
• ▶ 1:59:07 David Rosenthal Luca
• ▶ 1:59:35 David Rosenthal Luca knew exactly
• ▶ 1:59:39 David Rosenthal Luca is the one who institutes weightless.
• ▶ 1:59:44 David Rosenthal Luca is the one who institutes presentation ceremonies when your car is delivered.
• ▶ 1:59:51 David Rosenthal Luca is the one who institutes custom luxury leather luggage that comes perfectly fitted to your Ferrari.
• ▶ 2:00:00 David Rosenthal Luca institutes the luxury strategy.
• ▶ 2:00:04 Ben Gilbert Where did Luca come up with this strategy?
• ▶ 2:00:28 David Rosenthal Whereas Luca,
• ▶ 2:01:04 David Rosenthal Yes, this was another key understanding of Luca's.
• ▶ 3:43:26 David Rosenthal That's an old Luca line, but yes.
• ▶ 3:55:50 David Rosenthal Second, most importantly, to the other Luca, Luca de Montezemolo, truly a living legend who embodies Ferrari