Don’t give me any of that Madison Ave. beer commercial scheisse. Juan Manuel Fangio was the most interesting man in the world. Born in Argentina in 1911, he was the son of two Italian immigrants. His father worked as an apprentice stonemason, and his mother was a housekeeper. He dropped out of school when he was 13 to work as a mechanic. He served time in the Argentine military, and when he got out, he started rebuilding junk cars into race cars in a shed at his parents house. He drove a rebuilt Ford taxi in his first race. You call Uber to go two blocks.

Racing wasn’t like it is now. It was mostly held over long distances, often on dirt roads. Some of the races lasted two weeks. If your car broke down, you had to fix it yourself. He raced in all sorts of converted cars, Chevies and Fords, and won this and that. World War II came, and nothing much happened in racing until 1946.

Fangio was an old man by the end of the war, at least by racing standards. He started Formula One racing and was immediately the oldest man in every race, even though he was a rookie. The cars were wide open with no safety features. One of Fangio’s co-drivers in a long-distance race died after being thrown from the car in a wreck. Fangio didn’t quit. He drove Maseratis and SImcas and Alfettas and Alfa Romeos and Ferraris and Mercedes and beat everyone driving everything he drove the week before. He entered 52 Grand Prix races, and won 24 of them. Who wins 46 percent of their races? Fangio, and nobody.

Fangio continued to live vicariously through himself, because what was the point of dreaming about being anyone but Fangio? Fidel Castro had him kidnapped so he couldn’t win a race in Cuba. Has Castro ever had you kidnapped? I didn’t think so. You’re not Fangio. He told his captors to bring him a television so he could watch the race, and they did.

He never married, because he couldn’t picture himself stopping to ask for directions. He had some girlfriends along the way. They all had sons that looked remarkably like Fangio. The most interesting man in the world knew that the world needed spares, I guess.