Nunzia Manicardi - Modena Capitale dei Motori; QUANDO LA PASSIONE DIVENTA STORIA - 1987

Modena, Capital of Motors; WHEN PASSION BECOMES HISTORY by Nunzia Manicardi 1987. Hardcover with dust jacket. Pages 231. Language Italian.

The book gathers the research conducted by Nunzia Manicardi on the history of engines, both sporting and entrepreneurial, which has seen Modena over the years as a main center.
In the first part, it tells how Modena welcomed the pioneering world of engines, and how it organized its subsequent development: from the 1909 Mile Record race on Via Nonantolana to the closure of the Aerautodromo in the first half of the 1970s.
Following are the interesting chapters dedicated to men and events of Modenese motor racing, rich in documents and testimonies about protagonists in the automotive sector and especially in the motorcycle field — it is from motorcycles, in fact, that Modena’s interest in engines began.
Thus come the first experiments in assembling motorcycle engines in the Ponte della Pradella garage of Alfonso and Emidio Gatti (to which later the Enzo Ferrari Garage would be affiliated); the “Multiproduct Emporium” of Luigi and Massimo Solmi; the technician Arrigo Caiumi, a true pioneer of Modenese engines; figures such as Vittorio Guerzoni (Moto Mignon), Romeo Raimondi and other well-known protagonists (from Ferrari to Scaglietti, from Orsi to Stanguellini, from Lamborghini to Giulio Alfieri…) or less well known, but whose activity has been studied and analyzed carefully by the author.
Historical partnerships are also covered, starting with the Moto Club Modena and the other motor-sport associations that arose from the 1920s.
The volume is completed by the Albo d’Oro of the automobile and motorcycle Grand Prixs held at the Aerautodromo di Modena.