Young at heart Nino Vaccarella sits behind the wheel of a Type 33 Alfa. Photo by Pete Collins
This article originally was published on May 14, 2003
By Ed McDonough
Nino Vaccarella won the Targa Florio three times, and for this alone he remains a Sicilian hero. And, his name has become virtually synonymous with that great road race, where large painted letters appearing on the roads and walls on the eve of the event proclaimed ‘Vivo Nino’ year after year in the 1960s and 1970s. In 2001 Ed McDonough was fortunate to interview Vaccarella in depth.
The Palermo-born Nino Vaccarella is a relatively rare visitor to race events. But, not only did he show up at the 2001 Goodwood Festival of Speed, he was back behind the wheel of an Alfa Tipo 33, and spent the weekend in the company of those other colorful Italian racers of the period, Arturo Merzario, Sandro Munari and Marco Cajani. Phil Hill made a special point of meeting up with his old Ferrari teammate, and they disappeared into Italian for some while! I had the chance to interview him then, and in November, 2001, spent 5 glorious days in Sicily in the company of Nino, Art, Sandro and Vic Elford. What an experience!
Huge plaque given to Vaccarella for his victorious drives in the Targa Florio. Photo by Ed McDonough.
Vaccarella was known primarily for some superb sports car drives, though he had a number of non-championship F1 races, and four Grand Prix races. He drove for Scuderia Serenissima in 1961, and made his Grand Prix debut at Monza that year in a DeTomaso-Alfa. He didn’t qualify for the Monaco race in 1962 in a Lotus, finished 15th in the German GP in a Porsche, and retired at Monza in a Lotus-Climax, before getting a one-off Ferrari Grand Prix drive at Monza in 1965, where he was 12th. His sports car career, however, was much different, with a famous victory at Le Mans in 1964, sharing a works Ferrari 275P with Frenchman Jean Guichet. He won at Sebring in 1970 in a 512S, co-driving with Ignazio Giunti and Mario Andretti in that narrow victory over Steve McQueen’s Porsche 908. Vaccarella amassed a very high rate of finishes in long distance races.
A younger Vaccarella behind the wheel of a Type 33/2. Le Mans, 1968. Photo Credit Ed McDonough