Ferrari's sword-fighting "hippy" who sold himself short

The first thing to know about Alfonso de Portago is that at 17, for a $500 bet, he flew an aeroplane under a bridge.

A profile of de Portago, written in 1956, was entitled 'The Man Who Could Do Everything', and apparently he could. One of the leading amateur jockeys in Europe, twice he rode in the Grand National, and he was expert also in swordsmanship - in every sense, apparently - as well as boxing, tennis, skiing and bobsleighing.

Born in London, of a Spanish father and an American mother, Portago might have been put on earth for gossip columnists. 
He was a nobleman, and he was rich, a free spirit before the phrase was thought of, one who lived by his own rules. Fluent in several languages, languid of manner, with a cigarette permanently in the corner of his mouth, he had laconic charm to throw away, as comes across in an interview recorded in Nassau a few months before his death.

"Juan Manuel Fangio said I was his most dangerous rival at that particular race," he murmurs, "but I fear he was exaggerating."

Before getting into cars, de Portago's passion lay with horses, which he raced mainly in France. "Automobile racing didn't occur to me until I went to the New York Motor Show in 1953, and met Luigi Chinetti, the US Ferrari importer. He asked me to go with him in the Carrera Panamericana in Mexico - I was very frightened, but fortunately the car broke on the second day. For all my fear, though, I thought racing had a charm, and decided to take it up."

Thus he bought a Ferrari, and Harry Schell suggested he partner him at the Buenos Aires 1000Km. "The problem was, Harry was worried I'd break the car in practice, so he wouldn't let me drive. He did the first part of the race, then came in, and said, 'OK, now you drive'. I'd never driven a car with a manual gearbox before..."

Back in Europe, de Portago learned how to change gear, even to heel-and-toe, and he quickly progressed, winning several times in 1954. "I thought I'd arrived, and Ferrari should give me a contract..."

Although this was not forthcoming, Enzo agreed to sell him a Formula 1 car, but much of the 1955 season was lost when he broke his leg at Silverstone in May.

Late in the year, though, he did well in sportscar races, and for 1956 Ferrari indeed signed him, alongside Fangio, Peter Collins, Eugenio Castellotti and Luigi Musso. Big teams the Old Man ran in those days.

"De Portago," Enzo said, "was a kind of magnificent hippy, who made quite an impression on women, because he was a handsome man. What sticks in my mind is that gentlemanly image that always managed to emerge from the crude appearance he cultivated."

Phil Hill confirmed that impression when I spoke to him about de Portago: "When I first met 'Fon', he knew absolutely nothing about race cars, but he was a natural athlete, and he learned.

"He was also ahead of his time, in that he deliberately... dressed down, let's say. He wore this scruffy leather jacket, shaved about every four days, and looked like he had nothing. Then one day he gave me his card, with his address on Avenue Foch in Paris - and that's when I realised you could be fooled by appearances..."

At one point in the Nassau interview, Portago is asked if he is interested in cars.

"No, not at all," comes the answer. "For me, a car is either a means of getting from A to B - or it's something to race. I'd say that half the drivers have some mechanical knowledge, and the other half - of which I am one - have none at all..." Difficult to imagine him studying telemetry far into the night.

"I have a complex about Fangio and Stirling Moss," he says. "It's perfectly feasible to follow them, but if I have to lead them - set the example, if you like - then I start missing braking points, and so on. In fact, when I pass someone like Stirling, I think, 'This is rather peculiar - what's wrong with his car?'"

Self-deprecating, de Portago sold himself short. Given that he had only a couple of years' experience, and saw nothing remarkable in being able to run competitively, clearly his natural ability was high.

While driving, he invariably wore a short-sleeved shirt and light trousers, explaining in his impossibly laidback way that he didn't believe in overalls: "If you get gas on your clothes, and it catches fire, you have a much harder time getting out of overalls..."

For all his talent, emphatically racing was never the centre of de Portago's universe.

"I'm prepared to give it just so many years of my life - I want to be world champion, of course, but whatever happens I'll stop when I'm 35. There are so many other things I want to do - if I live to be 100 there won't be time for a twentieth of them, so I don't have any time to lose.

"I don't believe a racing driver is necessarily a brave man, as much as a man who isn't afraid."

In his 28 years de Portago also did a fair bit of maiden rescuing, one way and another. In early 1957 he was involved in a frantic affair with the actress Linda Christian, who accompanied him to Cuba, where he dominated the race - Fangio and Moss included - until his car broke, and she was also there to watch him in the Mille Miglia.

This was a race he hated and wanted to skip, but Ferrari insisted he drive, and at the 900-mile mark he was running fourth, albeit in a damaged car having clouted a bank. Crumpled bodywork was fouling a rear tyre, and at the final checkpoint the mechanics did their best to pull it clear. De Portago, though, waved them away, and let out the clutch. Fifty yards down the road he spotted Ms Christian, braked hard, and passionately embraced her. There was time for that, if not for attention to the car.

Minutes later, near the village of Guidizzolo, the tyre exploded: in the ensuing accident de Portago and his navigator Ed Nelson were killed, and so, too, were 11 spectators. Next day there was hysteria in the press, condemnation of Enzo Ferrari from the Vatican.

"Every driver believes it can't happen to him," de Portago says in the interview, "but I know it won't happen to me." The Mille Miglia died with him.