Gerald Roush

Gerald Roush seated at left as driver in this Ferrari 625 s/n 0642MDTR at the Mille Miglia race in Italia in May 1987. His co-driver and passenger is Steve Barney.

Gerald Lee Roush (October 5, 1941 – May 21, 2010) was an American sports car expert who specialized in Ferraris, with much of his knowledge on the details and histories of the Italian sports cars covered in Ferrari Market Letter, a magazine that he published and distributed.

Roush was born on October 5, 1941, in Durango, Colorado, but moved several times during his childhood to locations where his father was assigned by International Harvester. While in high school in Birmingham, Alabama, Roush picked up a 1958 issue of Sports Car Illustrated that featured driver Phil Hill, winner of the 1958 24 Hours of Le Mans and a Ferrari 4.9 Superfast, giving birth to an interest that would last a lifetime. While earning degrees in history at Auburn University, Roush started attending car races and shows, where he began tracking details of each Ferrari on 5x7 index cards identified by its serial number, supplemented by details gleaned from classified ads of Ferraris listed for sale in newspapers around the U.S.

He was a history professor at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College for two years in the mid-1970s, but quit that post to take a job in the parts department of FAF Motorcars, a Tucker, Georgia Ferrari dealership where he was able to add additional information to his growing database of index cards. He started publishing the biweekly Ferrari Market Letter in January 1976 together with his wife in their home and started working full-time on the magazine two years later.

A resident of Lilburn, Georgia, Roush died of a heart attack at age 68 on May 21, 2010, after having a stroke in March on his way to a car show.