Preview of 27th Vernasca Silver Flag

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On 1st December 1914, Alfieri Maserati, with the collaboration of his brothers Ernesto and Ettore, founded the workshop “Società Anonima Officine Alfieri Maserati” in Bologna. It is a “family run business”: Alfieri is the “boss”, however maintaining harmony in emotional relatioships; Ettore and Ernesto contribute with ingenuity and strength. Bindo joins a few years later. Mario, painter, draws the logo of the trident. They soon became car manufacturers: in 1926, at Targa Florio, debuted the Type 26, founder of a hegemonic dynasty. At the wheel of the various models sit, among others, Tazio Nuvolari, Carlo Felice Trossi and Achille Varzi, Richard Seaman, Clemente Biondetti, Raymond Sommer and Luigi Villoresi. The American driver Wilbur Shaw, driving an 8CT renamed Boyle Special, won the Indianapolis 500 in 1939 and 1940. Maserati is still the only car manufacturer to have won this trophy with a vehicle built entirely in the company. The post-war period opens again under the sign of the trident. Guido Barbieri enjoined success in his class at the Circuit of Piacenza, first round of the 1947 Championship. First the A6GCS, the S and SI series in various displacements, then the Birdcage take up the baton: they are the cars to defeat in the sport category. In Formula One, Juan Manuel Fangio and the 250F won two world titles. Luigi Musso, Alberto Ascari, Stirling Moss and many others alternate on the racing cars. In 1958 Maria Teresa De Filippis, driving one of these in Belgium, was the first woman to compete in a Grand Prix. The palmares of the House also counts three victories at Castell’Arquato-Vernasca: Fernando Pagliarini in 1956 and 1959 and Odoardo Govoni in 1961.Over the years, the workshop was transformed into an industrial reality of worldwide importance: not only racing cars, but also elegant grand tourers were created. In 1947, the brothers founded OSCA, an intense and brief sport and technical adventure, illuminated by talent and passion. Once again they were extraordinary interpreters of their time and expression of a fertile territory of industrious ingenuity. When the Maserati brothers started their own workshop, Emilia was a land of practical and imaginative farmers, far-sighted and striving for progress. In this region, between the plain and the Apennines, “between the Via Emilia and the West” as Guccini sings, the engine expertise becomes an identity trait, culture and genius loci, metaphor and horizon, pragmatism and poetry. Industrial experiences destined to become, like Maserati, great and famous in the world flourish from individual or family intuitions.Since 2015, this region has a prestigious and envied name: Motor Valley. Its story, made of incredible realities, of craftsmen of technology and beauty, of small factories and sensational successes begins, however, back in 1914, in that “Anonymous Workshop” born from the will of three brothers.That’s why the 27th Vernasca Silver Flag wants to pay tribute to Maserati, to these “pioneers” – the first to believe that people of Emilia, in terms of passion and mechanical curiosity, were second to none-and to that melting pot where, at the tempering of work and creativity, is forged the myth of Motor Valley, today universally recognized as the empyrean of the most beautiful cars ever built.

Meeting programmeFRIDAY

JUNE 9in Castell’Arquato15,00-17,00 Scrutineering and number distributionin Vernasca21, 00 Toscanini Orchestra Concert.The most beautiful sountracks

SATURDAY JUNE 108,30 -10,00 Scrutineering and number distribution10,30 Briefing by the judge at the scrutineering tent11,00 First Battery Castell’Arquato-Lugagnano-Vernasca 13,00 Lunch in Castell’Arquato restaurant15,30 Second Battery Castell’Arquato-Lugagnano-Vernasca20,00 Gala dinner in Castell’Arquatomedieval square

SUNDAY JUNE 1110,30 Third Battery Castell’Arquato-Lugagnano-Vernasca12,30 Buffet Lunch in Vernasca Ancie