Ferrari in America: Luigi Chinetti and the North American Racing Team. Limited Availability. Award winning author Michael Lynch’s romp of a tale chronicles Luigi Chinetti’s fascinating journey in bringing the grand Ferrari marque to America and explores the legacy of his North American Racing Team (NART), a cornerstone of international sports car racing in the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies. This story, however, is far more than Chinetti’s influence on Ferrari coming to America, or even his NART racing team. This story shares the challenges Chinetti faced, and overcame, and the unique people he met along the way. In time, Chinetti became the sole American importer for Ferrari. Being at the nexus of trade for such exquisite objects of desire meant that Chinetti sought, and was sought after by elite clientele. They came from the worlds of finance, industry, politics, entertainment, and sport. Their personalities ranged from the elegant to the mysterious to the swashbuckling. Michael tells their colorful tales, and how they came to prominence and sometimes to demise, and how they came to appreciate Chinetti and the cars he sold them. There are not many motor racing books that would make note of Benito Mussolini, Zora Arkus-Duntov, Ginger Rogers, Phil Hill, Miles Davis, Alberto Ascari, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Wilbur Shaw, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Curtis LeMay, Barbara Hutton, Mario Andretti and Paul Newman within its pages. Yet Michael weaves all of them and many more into a tale that includes espionage, financial shenanigans, romantic encounters, family dynasties, artistic accomplishments, triumphs and tragedies, and of course the sporting and technical developments of racing and NART’s influence on them. “I finally had a chance to read this in detail. It is absolutely amazing, full of facts. The details are astounding and give a colorful picture of what was going on. I am in awe over the way that you ferret out such important details and make this most fascinating time in world and racing history live.” Frederick A. Simeone, Simeone Foundation Automotive Museum Michael T. Lynch began his writing career for Prancing Horse, the Ferrari club magazine, in the 1970’s and was awarded the Warren Fitzgerald Memorial Award for the best article of that era. He co-authored “American Road Racing in the 1950s” with William Edgar and Ron Parravano with a foreword by Carroll Shelby. In 1998, he was awarded the Dean Batchelor Award, the Motor Press Guild’s highest honor, for this publication. In 2005, the Society of Automotive Historians presented him with the James Valentine Memorial Award for Excellence in Automotive Historical Research for a Road & Track piece on James Dean’s racing career. He was twice given an International Automotive Media Award, including in 2012 for “Carroll Shelby: A Legend Departs,” published in Vintage Motorsport magazine. His writing appeared in journals worldwide, including Cavallino, Automobile, Bimmer, Car Graphic (Japan), Carmel Magazine, Das Auto (Germany), Forza, the Historic Motorsports Journal, MG Magazine, Road & Track, Sports Car International, Sports Car Market, the 356 Registry, Valuerich, Vintage Motorsport and Vintage Racecar Journal. Online, his work was often seen on VeloceToday.com. Lynch was also noted for his program writing and announcing at some of the world’s most prestigious car events, including: Amelia Island Concours; the Art of the Car Concours; the Carmel-by-the-Sea Concours on the Avenue; the Marin Sonoma Concours d’Elegance; the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance; the Quail – A Motorsports Gathering, and the Quail Motorcycle Gathering. He provided announcing services at many of these events and was a commentator on the Speedvision TV channel for “Behind the Headlights.”