Chinetti was born in Jerago con Orago, north of Milan. His father was a gunsmith; Chinetti apprenticed in the family workshop, earning a lathe operator's certificate at age 12 and qualifying as a mechanic at age 14. In 1917, aged 16, he went to work for Alfa Romeo as a mechanic, where he met a fellow young hire named Enzo Ferrari. The rise of Benito Mussolini's National Fascist Party prompted a move to Paris, where he worked for Alfa Romeo as a salesman and began racing sports cars, building a reputation in endurance events — the 24 Hours of Le Mans in particular. Driving cars from Alfa Romeo, Talbot, and Ferrari, Chinetti competed in every Le Mans race held between 1932 and 1953; he entered the 1954 race as a sponsor rather than a driver.
Chinetti won his first 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1932, driving an Alfa Romeo race car entered by co-driver Raymond Sommer. The following year, partnered with Louis Chiron, he won the Spa 24 Hours in Belgium. He made three appearances in total at the Spa 24 Hours, taking outright wins in 1933 in an Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 with Philippe Varent, and again in 1949 in a Ferrari Tipo 166 MM with Jean Lucas. In 1934 he teamed with Philippe Étancelin to win his second 24 Hours of Le Mans.
At the 1949 24 Hours of Le Mans, Chinetti drove the first Ferrari to win the event, becoming the second three-time winner of the race. The winning Ferrari 166M was driven for twenty minutes by Baron Selsdon of Scotland (Peter Mitchell-Thomson), making Thomson the official co-driver despite Chinetti having driven twenty-three of the race's twenty-four hours. Following the race, Thomson purchased the car through Chinetti.
Chinetti also won the Paris 12 Hours twice: in 1948 in a Ferrari Tipo 166 SC, and in 1950 in a Tipo 166 MM with Jean Lucas. In 1951 he was the riding mechanic in the Ferrari 212 that won the Carrera Panamericana, a 2,100-mile five-day competition across Mexico. He appeared in the Carrera Panamericana three more times, with a best subsequent finish of third place in 1952.
Following the outbreak of World War II in Europe, Chinetti went to the United States as part of the Lucy O'Reilly Schell Écurie Bleue team — which also included driver René Dreyfus — for an appearance at the 1940 Indianapolis 500. He remained in New York, working at Pratt and Whitney and then supporting the Allied war effort at J. S. Inskip, working on Rolls-Royce engines alongside Italian master mechanic Alfred Momo. Chinetti applied for American citizenship in 1947 and took the oath of allegiance on 6 March 1950; his naturalization was sponsored by Zora Arkus-Duntov.
When the war ended, Chinetti returned to Europe in late 1949, first going to Paris and then travelling to Modena. He met Enzo Ferrari on Christmas Eve in Ferrari's office. Accounts differ on the nature of that meeting: some describe Ferrari as despondent and considering abandoning sports car production, with Chinetti countering that Ferrari should resume building racing cars funded by road car sales to America, and reportedly placing an order for 25 cars. Other accounts note that Ferrari had already begun building the new 125 racing car in June of that year. In any case, Chinetti left with an agreement to serve as Ferrari's agent in France and the United States.
Enzo Ferrari appointed Chinetti as his factory agent in the United States. Chinetti opened the first — and for a time the only — Ferrari dealership in the country; his territory later extended to all areas east of the Mississippi River. Chinetti Motors also served as the US agent for Automobili OSCA of Bologna until 1967.
The first Ferrari Chinetti sold to the US was a Tipo 166 MM Touring Barchetta (chassis 0002 M), sold to Tommy Lee in Los Angeles in early 1949. The second was a Ferrari Tipo 166 Spyder Corsa (chassis 016-I) sold to Briggs Cunningham, who drove it to second place at Watkins Glen in 1949. The third was a Tipo 166 MM Barchetta (0010 M) sold to Jim Kimberly; it became the first Ferrari to race and win west of the Mississippi in 1951. In 1952 Chinetti sold a 1951 Ferrari 212 Export Barchetta to Phil Hill, near the beginning of Hill's career; Chinetti later hired Hill as a driver and recommended him to Ferrari, who eventually placed Hill in their Formula One team. Chinetti sold his business in 1977 and died on 17 August 1994 at age 93.
Chinetti founded N.A.R.T. with financial support from George Arents and Jan de Vroom. His relationship with Ferrari guaranteed a supply of former works cars and ongoing factory support. N.A.R.T. ran successful endurance programmes at Sebring and Le Mans into the 1970s, and fielded drivers including Stirling Moss, Mario Andretti, Phil Hill, Pedro Rodríguez, Ricardo Rodríguez, Graham Hill, and Jean-Pierre Jarier. Chinetti also attempted to promote journalist Denise McCluggage as a Le Mans driver, but the application was denied. He successfully entered Yvonne Simon for the 1950 24 Hours of Le Mans partnered with Michel Kasse, and fielded an all-female team of Simon and Betty Haig at the 1951 24 Hours of Le Mans.
In 1964, when the FIA refused to homologate the Ferrari 250 LM for international sports car racing, Enzo Ferrari returned his competition licence and vowed never to race in Ferrari Red again. With the championship at stake, Ferrari's F1 158s raced in N.A.R.T. blue and white at the 1964 United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen and at the 1964 Mexican Grand Prix. The dispute was resolved by the start of the 1965 season, and the cars returned to red.
N.A.R.T. also commissioned limited-run special variants of Ferrari road cars. Left without a convertible model after the 250 GT California ended production in 1962, Chinetti obtained factory permission to have coachbuilder Scaglietti convert a series of 4-cam 275GTB/4 coupés into open-top cars; of a planned run of 25, only ten are believed to have been built as the 275 GTS/4 NART Spyder. In the mid-1970s Chinetti commissioned Giovanni Michelotti to produce a series of Ferrari Daytonas with heavily customised bodywork, known as the Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona NART Spider. The first was shown at the 1974 Turin Auto Show; subsequent conversions included a racing-spec car built for a planned 1975 24 Hours of Le Mans appearance, though it was withdrawn before the race.
Chinetti married on 18 April 1942. He and wife Marion had one son, Luigi "Coco" Chinetti Junior. On 27 July 1963 Luigi Jr. married Mamie Spears Reynolds (1942–2014), daughter of US Senator Robert Rice Reynolds; Reynolds was the first woman to qualify for the Daytona 500. Luigi Jr. and Reynolds divorced after two years. Chinetti remained in Greenwich, Connecticut after his retirement.
This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.
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