From "Italian Motor-Racing" by Vernon Jarratt

"...They are the men about whom the stories are told; it is when their names are mentioned that eyes light up; they are the stuff of legend. In motor-racing there is absolutely no doubt on whom this laurel should be bestowed. Tazio Nuvolari.

His beginning was typical of his life. Born in 1892 he was still a boy at school when an early aeroplace crashed nearby. Nuvolari salvaged it and rebuilt it; those were the days of struts, wire tensioners, and fabric wings. He managed to get it hoisted on to the roof of his house. He got the motor started, cut the rope that hobbled it to the chimney, took off, and immediately crashed in the garden below, breaking his back.

But that no more stopped him than his other breakages later in life. In his motor-cycling days - he won over 300 events before giving up two wheels for four - he was in plaster from a car crash at Monza the day of an important motor cycle race. He got his friends to carry him to the track, start the bike, and hoist him aboard. He couldn't stand or walk but he could ride. He rode in a plaster cast and won at 124kph. He crossed the finishing line, waving madly to his friends for help. He could ride and win but he couldn't get off the bike, so had to catch him before he fell.

He had a fine sardonic humour. He once rebuked Ferrari for buying him a return ticket when he was driving in the Targa Florio. "You're supposed to be a businessman. You should know better than to buy a driver a return ticket." In an earlier Targa Florio, 1932, he told Paride Mambelli, his riding mechanic, to duck under the scuttle when he shouted. A shout would mean that they were coming into a corner too fast and might turn over; the scuttle would help to protect the boy. At the end of the race Mambelli complained that he spent the entire time under the scuttle. "He started shouting at the first corner," said Mambelli, "and didn't stop until the last one." That was the race in which Nuvolari set up a record that lasted until 1952, twenty years later, one more of his unique achievements.

The 1935 German Grand Prix, run on that most difficult course the Nurburgring, was typical of his mastery. The lone Italian was driving an outdated outpaced Alfa Romeo. Ranged against him was the full might of the Mercedes and Auto Union teams. They were faster, had better acceleration, better brakes, and some of the best drivers living. And yet Nuvolari won! How? One can only say that on his best days he really was superhuman. It could indeed be said that he won this particular race twice, for an over-excited pit-hand broke the pump and he had to be refuelled by hand, losing so much time that he had to set out to overhaul and pass the leaders all over again. It was in the same year that he won the Czechoslovakia Grand Prix, finishing with only one rear tyre. The other wheel was running on the bare rim.

The following year he showed his incredible technical mastery in his handling of an Auto Union. This was admittedly the most difficult racing-car in the world to drive. With its unorthodox construction, strange handling, rear engine, and forward position for the driver, it reduced the worlds best drivers to the level of beginners. The better the driver, the more difficulty he had in adapting himself. But not Nuvolari. The first time he ever raced an Auto Union he won - Monza in 1938. The second time he won - Donington, also in 1938 . And the third and last time - the Jugoslavian Grand Prix in 1939.

His racing career lasted from 1921 to 1950. In his first race he came in second in his class. In his last race he was the outright winner. In between he won every important race, many of them several times over - the Mille Miglia twice, the Targa Florio twice. He drove every sort of car from the simple sports two-seaters to the most difficult formula monoposto monsters. He drove on every sort of circuit - tracks like Monza, round-the-houses like Monte Carlo, typical Grand Prix circuits like Pescara, long-distance races like Le Mans, straight record attempts on the autostrade. He won them all. He finished in 130 races and of these he won 64 outright. In his whole life he was second only 17 times. His determination was absolute.

His end was heavy with irony. The man whose whole life had been dedicated to motors developed an allergy which made exhaust gas insupportable. He tried everything from face-masks to a tonsillectomy when he was sixty-one. Nothing helped. Towards the end of his life they used to lift him, bleeding and helpless, form the seat of the car that he drove like the maestro he still was. Perhaps even more ironic is the fact that the man who had broken innumerable bones, who had seven major smash-ups, who had jumped from a burning car at a hundred miles an hour, died in bed, at home in Mantua, at the age of 61."