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Christian Bale quits Enzo Ferrari biopic over weight gain

Christian Bale has an unusual but rational reason for dropping the role of Enzo Ferrari in the upcoming biopic of that same name, Variety reports. The actor, famous for his role in the Dark Knight trilogy and American Psycho, apparently felt that he couldn't gain the weight necessary to start filming this spring quickly enough without putting his health in danger. As we reported last year, Bale was to play Ferrari during a dark year for the company, when 11 people died during an accident involving one of the company's race cars during the 1957 Mille Miglia, a race in Italy held on public roads. The crash led to the cancelation of the Mille Miglia entirely. The script itself is based on a book written by famous automotive journalist Brock Yates, "Enzo Ferrari, The Man, The Cars, The Races." While the director, Michael Mann, now has to scramble to find a new lead actor, Robert de Niro is reportedly developing a movie in which he will play il Commendatore over a wider span of the man's life. Nonetheless, the idea of two Enzo biopics in the offing should make gearhead movie lovers doubly happy. Related Video:

This computer-generated Ferrari 250 GTO carved from marble rocks

The Ferrari 250 GTO ranks as perhaps the most valuable production car ever made. In just the past two years, units of the ultimate '60s sports car have sold for $32 million, $35 million and maybe as high as $52 million. With just 39 of them ever assembled, these Ferrari owners are among a rarefied class of an already top-tier class of car collectors. So once you collect the ultimate car, then what do you do? How about buy a scale model of it hewn from a single block of Arabescato marble by stone specialist Lapicida?
Interestingly, no sculptor developed a leathery callouses on his or her hands over the hundreds of man hours surely necessary to create this work of art, nor were dozens of hand tools worn to the nub in the pursuit of this homage to Italian performance. To create the 1:3.6 replica of a 1962/1963 GTO, Lapicida simply laser-scanned an actual GTO and fine-tuned the resulting data in 3D modeling software. Then, the file was sent to a computer-controlled, five-axis mill to shape the marble, which was selected because the veining gave the illusion of speed. Finally, it was hand-finished to make sure the details were as crisp as possible. The completed model measures 47.2-inches long, 18.1-inches wide and 13.4-inches tall and retails for a tidy £30,000 - over $49,000 USD.
Impressive though it may be, it seems hard to imagine spending that sort of money on a car that you can't sit in or drive down the road. Then again, if you can afford to own a real 250 GTO, it's barely pocket change. Lapicida also takes commissions, so if you want a marble model of your car, they're happy to do it. Then again, if you just need your foyer retiled or your personal chef's is demanding an upgraded kitchen, they'll do that, too. Scroll down to get the full details on the model.

Where did Ferrari's new CEO come from? Cigarettes and money

At the close of the 2006 Formula One season, cigarette advertising was banned from the cars on the grid. Arguably the most prominent and widely recognized brand/car package was the red, black and white Marlboro logo that encompassed the Ferrari cars. Marlboros were marketed by the company then known as Phillip Morris. Phillip Morris became part of a conglomerate named Altria. The man who was the CEO of Altria at the time of the tobacco advertising ban, a man who had long been an exec at what was still just Phillip Morris during the 1980s and 1990s, when much of the truly exciting F1 racing occurred, was Louis C. Camilleri. Camilleri has been given the powers of the CEO by the board of Ferrari and is likely to be given the official job within days due to the unfortunate health-related circumstances of Sergio Marchionne. According to a story that appeared in November 2001 on Motorsport.com about the ban on tobacco advertising in Formula One, the organizing body of the sport, the FIA, released a statement that said, in part, "Today tobacco sponsorship remains an important source of revenue for a number of Formula 1 and World Rally Championship teams. The precise value of such sponsorship is hard to estimate but probably exceeds 350 million per year." Serious money. And as Camilleri, presumably, had more than a little something to do with the splashing of the Marlboro signage on the cars of drivers including Schumacher and Massa, his association with Ferrari probably had more to do with nicotine than gasoline. In October 2015 Ferrari's IPO was priced at $52 per share. At the beginning of 2018 the price was at $105.15; as of July 20, $140. Like any good billionaire, he is said to have a collection of Ferraris, though he isn't a "car guy" in the traditional sense of coming up in the business. (One of the Altria companies had been Kraft Foods, so he may know more than most about things like Velveeta.) But Ferrari is as much about serious money as it is about V12s nowadays, maybe more. Related Video: