The Ferrari I Wanted for Myself

After the fashion show, Henri Vuitton called at the office of his colleague Ralph Warren.

They were in the same trade, so there had been a passing acquaintance between them, but never much cause for a real conversation. They had met at the cruise party Park Jihoon hosted and grown friendly there. In collecting, at least—the passion they shared—the two of them understood each other. Show them anything marked by the passage of time, and their nature was to pile it in a warehouse first and look later. Henri Vuitton loved old works of art above all. Warren was the sort who let go of reason's reins the moment he saw clothes, furnishings, or cars from a particular era.

Two unmistakable collectors had met, so of course the talk flowed. It was no different now. They had not said a word about business, and for a full hour they had been spinning yarns about nothing but collecting.

"These days I'm sunk completely in automobiles."

Warren's love of cars was famous. He kept a private garage of several acres in New York, where the ground itself cost a fortune. Enough said.

"If you knew how mad I've been for cars... my own daughter is in an uproar about going racing."

"Did she take after her father?"

"She could hardly help it. She's been looking at things with wheels since she was small... the natural conclusion."

Warren looked privately sorry for it. So Henri Vuitton offered a joke, to loosen the air.

"It may not be only that."

"......?"

"However many paintings I buy... my children have never once picked up a brush."

"Oh-ho."

"It's the same even when I bring home a work that's in the history books. They won't so ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠much as glance at it, I tell you."

The two of them laughed, broad and easy.

"We've grown this close, and that's a kind of fate. What would you say to collaborating?"

An hour after the conversation had begun, Henri Vuitton raised business for the first time. Perhaps that was why Warren quietly straightened where he sat.

"A collaboration?"

"Yes. The two of us met with CEO Park Jihoon as the link between us. If we collaborate, I wonder if we might try it in a similar form."

"......?"

"This time, our Luy Vuitton has agreed to go forward with a collaboration with Gromhats."

"And you're saying I ought to collaborate with Gromhats at the same time. Is that it?"

Exactly that. The two houses had met through the link called Park Jihoon. What Henri meant now was this: what if, this time, the two brands were joined through Jihoon's Gromhats?

"Then we could stage a friendly rivalry over who does it better. The press could play up the match and pour out articles, couldn't they?"

The marketing effect would be certain enough. Warren nodded.

Rrrr! Rrrr!

The phone rang, right on cue. Warren begged pardon and made his careful way to the desk.

Click.

While Warren was exercising this generosity—if that was the word for it—Henri Vuitton, who had no way of knowing what was said, only sat there blinking.

"He said yes. Told me to just take it."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know either. I don't know why he's like that."

"......"

"I told him it was fine, and he still just forced it through."

A Ferrari 288 GTO. Even across the whole history of the automobile, it was one of the great cars.

Once incomes in Korea had risen, you could go down to Gangnam, in southern Seoul, and see sports cars—Ferraris, Lamborghinis—without much trouble. At a minimum, one turned up every ten minutes, regular as clockwork.

But those were mass-produced models, the sort that cost around four hundred million won, a few hundred thousand dollars. The supercar line that ran from the 288 GTO through the F40, the F50, the Enzo Ferrari, and the LaFerrari was a rare sight in Cheongdam-dong, and no less rare in Hannam-dong, the city's richest neighborhoods.

Of course it was. Put simply: just because a car came out wearing the Ferrari name did not mean it was the same Ferrari as every other.

Olivia's explanation, sure enough, came to much the same thing.

"This wasn't actually built to be driven on public roads."

A thing born with racing in its blood.

"The body sits so low that if you so much as meet a speed bump, a lot of people have a very tiring day."

In short, it was a car you kept in a circuit garage, as it was now, and drove only on a track.

And indeed, the speedometer was marked all the way to two hundred miles an hour.

"Ha."

A gift was absurd. Even so—

For now, I'll at least drive it. Ahem.

In due course I took a short lesson from Olivia.

"How do you know all this so well?"

Because I had already earned a license in my previous life. Thanks to that, the instruction moved quickly. Even so, anything to do with safety was mandatory.

"A safety car will run ahead of you. Keep a good gap. And absolutely no passing."

Only after I had drilled the same points twice was I allowed onto the track.

"Shall we just take one slow lap to start?"

At her word, I tried the ignition.

A heavy, singular roar broke loose, and then the engine fell into a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠rhythm like hoofbeats, a rapid drumming that set my heart alight. I had only set my foot lightly on the accelerator. The chassis answered at once, as if it were ready to be fired down the straight whenever I asked. The moment I put more strength into my toes, the car lunged.

The acceleration was tremendous, and yet there was no unease in it at all. It drove out glued fast to the pavement, and the instant I so much as touched the gear lever, the car answered. It was a cliché, but the old line fit exactly. The car and I were moving as one body. It would haul the speed up with that weighty pull, and then, the moment I clamped down on the brakes and turned into a corner, it showed me a lightness I had never felt.

Yes. This was a Ferrari.

Only after a full ten laps did I leave the track.

Hadn't I just been drinking soju with Grandfather? And now, on top of that, the Ferrari I had been waiting for.

This break... really is spectacular.

I cut the engine, then took off the helmet and the gloves in turn. Olivia, seated beside me, asked.

"How was it?"

It was hard to explain in a single line. I had meant, clearly enough, to acquire the Ferrari team for Grandfather. And yet look at this. After the pleasure of coming out of a corner at speed—

I want it.

Not only Scuderia Ferrari, the racing team. Setting Grandfather's dream aside. For my own sake, purely. I had come to want the company called Ferrari.

"Why are you making a face like that?"

"Like what?"

"Just... you look happy."

A grin tugged at me. It felt like stumbling on a playlist I had forgotten entirely—like calling back, whole and untouched, the songs I had once been tender about. With this, I would be able to enjoy myself for a while. I grinned.

If that was happiness, then maybe it was.

Quietly, I lifted one corner of my mouth.

It was opening day in the Italian second division, and the stadium was packed.

Lorenzo, chairman of Ferrari, sat in the VIP seats as he always did. A third-generation fan of Modena FC, he counted a weekend at the ground among the great joys of his life.

A club stranded forever in the second division. It was something he told himself every year, whenever he came for the opener.

This year is different.

Lorenzo reached the conclusion with a perfectly earnest face. And it was not empty talk. This season truly looked worth a try.

For one thing, the owner had changed and installed a new manager. French, they said. Hearing that the man had come out of a league in Asia, Lorenzo had not expected much, but word had it that even the players' diets had been rebuilt along systematic lines, and their condition had climbed a great deal.

Nor was that all. The number nine already out first, warming up—a baby-faced, long-haired striker from Argentina. They said he was the owner's own pick, and Lorenzo had wondered whether it was right to hand the lone striker's role to a player still ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in his late teens. Yet in friendlies alone he had scored eight goals in three matches, and was said to be showing a heaven-sent sense for goal.

Heh. The owner spends like water. The young manager's got fire in him. The new striker is banging them in like a lunatic. And I'm supposed to get through this season without hoping?

Right then, the stadium announcer took the microphone in a great, hearty voice.

It was about to start.

Chairman Lorenzo looked down at the pitch with the happiest face in the world.

The next day, I left the hotel early in the morning. I was going to meet the mechanical-engineering professor Martin had introduced.

I arrived a full ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hour early, and still the professor was already waiting at the appointed place.

"I'm Theo Ratcliffe."

He was an MIT professor, so I had assumed he would be somewhat older. And what was this? He was in his mid-thirties.

Was he used to looks like that? Theo smiled as he spoke.

"I was appointed in my early twenties. For my age, the career is fairly long."

In plain words, a genius. I was startled myself, but he seemed fairly shocked to see me, too. Fair enough. I was hardly in a position to go on about other people's ages.

At any rate.

"I was told the work is developing an F1 engine."

"Yes."

"The goal would be to beat McLaren."

"Is it possible?"

"Building a monstrous engine is not so difficult. What is hard is guaranteeing the durability and stability to last a full season."

"And money is what makes that hard thing possible, isn't it?"

"Precisely."

Honest. I liked that.

"How much would it take?"

The figure he named ran past what I had expected. Even so, it was only a difference of some tens of billions of won—tens of millions of dollars. Well.

"It isn't only the money. You'll need to bring in an aerodynamics specialist as well. The chassis design has to be finished before we can settle on an engine size to match it."

I nearly felt I ought to apologize for being a humanities man. Fortunately, I did have some interest in aerodynamics. Or rather, not interest so much as this: I knew the greatest genius that field had ever produced.

An F1 title within two years?

And I was about to walk into it without a thought in my head!

That was true enough. Hmm. The trouble was, the man was something of an eccentric.

I asked Theo, lightly.

"You mean the engineer and the aerodynamics specialist have to work together?"

"That's right."

"Hmm. What if that specialist isn't someone who works the aerodynamics out on a computer, but someone who just draws it all by hand, imagines his way to the result, and......"

"That is impossible."

"Right? It would be impossible, wouldn't it?"

"Yes. Science is accomplished through rigorous calculation."

And what was I supposed to do about that? The man I knew would take a mechanical pencil, sketch and sketch, and devour aerodynamics whole.

I clicked my tongue.

A collaboration between the most scientific of men and an eccentric who looked like the very opposite of science.

It'll work out somehow.

With an awkward smile, I quietly scratched the back of my head.