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Welcome to the special section “BAM 35 Years.” We are presenting “cult” articles from the Motor Boats archive, starting in 1990. A journey through time among stories unobtainable today, even in the great sea of the internet! A dive into the world of epic moments in motor boating. Here is one of the stories we were most passionate about.
From Boats by Motor 2005, no. 11, April, pp. 98-102.
From auto body worker to car salesman to great entrepreneur. The story of Roberto Pozzerle, founder of Lepanto.
There is a small story that tells a great truth. It says, “Every day in Africa a gazelle wakes up and knows it must run faster than the lion if it is not to be eaten. Every day in Africa a lion wakes up and knows it must run faster than the gazelle if it wants to eat.” It is a metaphor for the struggle for life. A story that is not only African. A story that after the last war many people knew, even in Italy.
Roberto Pozzerle: “I come from a farming family that lived and worked in Caselle di Sommacampagna, where the airport is today. Just to build it, in 1950 we were expropriated and basically reduced to poverty. We then moved to Villafranca, which is nearby, where my father had found work as a farmhand. At the age of twelve I started working as a carpenter’s helper, and having no other options, I attended night school. Then, from the carpenter’s store I moved on to an auto body shop, where I learned to work with sheet metal. Trying to improve my position, one day I went to one of the best-known body shops in Verona, where they did conversions and work of a certain importance; I introduced myself to the owner, told him what I knew how to do and that I wanted to work. In our part of the world when one has a desire to work, he is always welcome. And so, the owner, after squaring me, shook my hand and said, “I’ll expect you tomorrow morning.” And from there my story of being a bodyworker started. Meanwhile, my brothers had also started working in the industry-Mario was a mechanic and Claudio, the youngest, a painter. In 1972, when I was 27, I thought the time was ripe to start my own business. I talked about it with my brothers and we decided to try the adventure. We had already begun, in the evenings, to do some work in the basement under the house we had built with our own hands together with Dad. I thus communicated our decision to the owner of the body shop, who was sincerely displeased, so much so that in order to hold me back, he offered me to go into partnership. But I wanted to set up something with my family. We have always been very close.”
Motor Boats: This something then became very…
Roberto Pozzerle: “Yes, but don’t think it was all easy. After we opened our business, we bought a piece of farmland to build a small shed to repair cars on, and we signed quite a few promissory notes. But a year later, in ’74, the fuel crisis and therefore the automobile crisis broke out; we were traveling on alternate license plates, there was little work, and we were in debt. At that time it happened that a friend of mine had to go to Germany to buy some farm machinery. He asked me to accompany him, and I, who had little or nothing to do, went. There, in Wuppertal, while he was transacting his business, I went around browsing and noticed a body shop with an all-Italian name: Carota. I went in, said hello, and the owner was actually one of us. He had several wrecked Italian cars and I asked him what he did with them. He replied that he was scrapping them because no one wanted them anyway. I could hardly believe it. They were gold to me. Doing some math I found out that labor in Germany cost four times what it did in Italy and that if I could repair those cars in Italy, then I could easily resell them making good money. But the practical and bureaucratic problems for me were insurmountable, until, one evening, I happened to retrieve an accident victim car that belonged to the director of the Verona customs (at that time I had managed to get ACI to give me a car dealership for roadside assistance in the Villafranca area). I told him then about my problem and he gave me all the tips to import those cars. That was our good fortune. We got to repair up to 500 of them in one year. I hired a few workers and I, who was the owner, was the driver, going up and down from Frankfurt with the truck to transport cars. For ten years I did importing, repairing and selling wrecked cars. Then, partly because of the competition that had discovered the line, I started importing new Fiat and Alfa Romeos.”
Motor Boats: Does that mean he was importing Italian cars to Italy from Germany?
Roberto Pozzerle: “Yes, because in Germany they sold them at a political price and the price was cheap. Then with the European Union market, the deal ended, but another one was born: the mark had gone up to 1,250 lira. So I turned the truck around, bought German or Japanese cars in Italy and went to resell them in Germany. With the mark at those levels a German saved 15 million buying an Audi in Italy! The business meanwhile had developed. In addition to buying and selling cars with Germany and the ACI rescue service, I had also started importing Cherokee off-road vehicles from Canada.”
Motor Boats: Contact with boating how did it come about?
Roberto Pozzerle: “Casually. We had a small house on Lake Garda, and one of my clients, who had to pay off a debt, offered me his boat in lieu of money. Since this was going on for a long time, I accepted. It was an American boat, made for day trips, and we fell in love with it. As soon as one of us could, we would take our wives and children and go out on the lake. One day the engine left us in the middle of the Garda, and without mobile phones-there were none in those days-we had a hard time. The passion did not go away, though, and so when my German friend went to Canada to buy Cherokee, I told him, “Try to find me a nice American boat and bring it down.” My friend did more. Much more. One night the phone rang, it was him, who had not taken the time difference into account, and he said, “I was at a boatyard to get your boat and I heard that the owner would like to open a resale in Italy. I thought of you.” I was very puzzled, because I really didn’t know anything about boats and my brothers didn’t know anything either. We are land people. However, since I never turn down a deal if it is one, I took my time and told him, “Bring me all the data and then we will evaluate.” When he returned, he told us what to do to make contact. Of course they wanted to know who we were, what we did, what guarantees we gave. After a month we got a fax telling us that Mr. Veer Beri from US Marine was coming to Milan to meet us. He came, we talked for two days and introduced him to our business reality: in the automotive world we were somebody. And he was convinced: “Gentlemen,” he told us ceremoniously, “I will be waiting for you in Seattle, you will be my distributors for Italy. The price of the boats seemed attractive to us, and to begin with we ordered two hundred of them. Crazy, reckless stuff. Only now do I realize that. We sold them all, though.”
Motor Boats: How did you sell an item – let’s say – that you didn’t know about?
Roberto Pozzerle: “Not surprisingly, I had just returned from Seattle that I received a phone call from engineer Pier Luigi Carniti, an expert in the field, offering to work for us. It was just what we needed. For four consecutive years my brother Claudio followed him around talking all day about boats. After four years he knew everything there was to know about selling them. He has the innate gift of a dealer and when there is a deal he sniffs it out from a distance.”
Powerboats: Will he have needed a boating base?
Roberto Pozzerle: “We actually realized that going to test boats on Lake Garda by bringing them from the countryside was very troublesome. So we realized that it was necessary to have a foothold and we set out to find one. We found it in Desenzano, but it was equipped only with an old pier, and so without thinking too much about it we submitted a project to make a marina, in agreement with the owner, and it was granted. The project was financed by a German bank that knew me. They did everything in a day: two young officials came and, after evaluating the project, they were enthusiastic and deliberated the financing within a short time.”
Powerboats: Fifteen years after entering the boating market, what is your idea of it?
Roberto Pozzerle: “It is a growing market because there is still so much work to be done. From many points of view. On mentality, for example: in Norway, people take boats to go to work or to visit friends. We have 8,000 kilometers of coastline, but we don’t exploit it as much as we could. Then on organization: there is a multitude of small local fairs that involve large investments and do not give the desired results. Efforts could be concentrated in areas that allow more development. And then there are still markets yet to be discovered. We have focused on the Upper Adriatic, which is the gateway to the Northeast, and we are looking at the Austrian market, the German market, Slovenia and Croatia.”
Motor Boats: You are a brilliant entrepreneur, what plans do you have for the immediate future?
Roberto Pozzerle: “We built a Marina in Monfalcone, in which we invested a lot of money, because it is the gateway to the markets I was talking about. I think it gives us a further leap in quality.”
Motor Boats: When business is involved, there are often fights even within the family. Has this ever happened between you brothers?
Roberto Pozzerle: “You may not believe it, but we always got along on everything. Now Claudio and I are left in charge of the company. Mario retired at the time Lepanto Yachting was founded. I with Claudio don’t need to talk; we just need a look to understand each other. And it has always been that way. Now there is a new generation coming into the company, and we thought of planning for the future, so that young people could collaborate effectively without contrasts. So he moved to Monfalcone with his family and I stayed here.”
Motor Boats : If you were to take stock of your life, how would you evaluate it?
Roberto Pozzerle: “A life in which I had a lot and struggled a lot. It was a success made of sacrifices, created day after day. My story is that of all the people of Verona who came out of the war in pieces and had to work hard to survive. I had more luck than many others. When I was twenty years old, I applied to join Fiat and Ferrovie. If they had hired me, I would not be here today to tell you my story. But luck, all in all, is to be in the right place at the right time. Then it all depends on us. I believe that every day, each of us receives our opportunities. One has to be able to grasp them with tenacity, with intelligence and with honesty. And whatever work you do, you have to put your soul into it. Otherwise, you don’t make your way.”
A simple recipe. A simple story of a simple but strong man. A man who was able to fight to emerge from a social condition that penalized his intelligence, his resourcefulness. A true fighter. A gladiator.
by Riccardo Magrini
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