Car Mysteries: Why Does Fangio's Kidnapping in Cuba Explain His Value?

No ranking of the greatest motorsport champions fails to include Juan Manuel Fangio at the top. Indeed, after Schumacher and Hamilton, and ahead of current leader Max Verstappen, with five Formula 1 World Titles to his name, comes the Argentine champion.
Fangio was a driver who defied every rule: the first being the age at which he won his first title with Alfa Romeo: in 1951, when he was forty. But that was only the beginning; his last title, with Maserati, was extraordinary at 46. Extraordinary because his massive build, his baldness, and his calm manner of speaking contrasted sharply with the image and age of his rivals and teammates, especially the very young Stirling Moss, who almost never managed to prevail on the track. It's fun to imagine the situation: Moss, lean, athletic, elegant, and very British in his manner, and Fangio, with a detached attitude, driving in the race with the calm of someone sitting in a living room, often holding a toothpick in his mouth during the race, without ever biting it! A sort of psychological warfare against his rivals, you might say.