Ben Gilbert: prediction

Transcript context

…Well, he lives to launch the F40, which is the last car that Enzo launches. So there are two really interesting things about this deal. One, Enzo started his career by applying for a job at Fiat and was turned down. So that's a total full circle moment there. The other full circle moment is that Gianni Agnelli was one of the very first Ferrari customers of their road cars. It's amazing. And when you look at the actual deal, this, this blew my mind, David. If you do the lira to US dollar exchange rate in 1969, they ended up selling half the company for a little under $3.5 million, valuing all of Ferrari at $6.8 million. Wow. Oh my goodness. Enzo really wanted to do this deal, and I think he determined at this point in history— I've not seen this written anywhere, but I'm reading into this, you know, even Ford thought it was worth somewhere between $10 and $18 million earlier in the decade. Enzo basically had one bidder and he thought, I have no exit path other than this. This needs to land with Fiat and whatever the price is, it is. And so I think Fiat basically got a steal on this because it needed to stay in Italy and it needed to go to a strong, thriving car company- Car company and family in the Agnelli's. Well, all of this just underscores the most critical point here. I think this is probably the moment in history where the false legend that Enzo only cared about racing and wasn't a real entrepreneur emerges from. Because if you look at the fact pattern, it makes sense here. Like he wanted to spend his last days racing. He did this not great deal with Fiat. Yeah. The only reason this happened is because he truly thought he was about to die. Yep. And he really did just want to spend his last days on Earth running the racing team. And he wanted to ensure continuity for the company. And a role for his son Piero going forward. That's what happened here.…

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