Juan Manuel Fangio (Balcarce, June 24, 1911 - Buenos Aires, July 17, 1995), nicknamed "El Chueco" ("knock-kneed") or "El Maestro" ("The Master"), was a race car driver from Argentina, who dominated the first decade of Formula One racing. He won five Formula One World Driver`s Championships — a record which stood for 46 years eventually beaten by Michael Schumacher — with four different teams (Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz and Maserati), a feat that has not been repeated since. Many still consider him to be the greatest driver of all time.

He is the only Argentine driver to have won the Argentine Grand Prix, having won it four times in his career.

He born on San Juan`s day in 1911 in Balcarce, Argentina to Italian parents from the small central Italian village of Castiglione Messer Marino, near Chieti.
He began his racing career in Argentina in 1934, driving a 1929 Ford Model A which he had rebuilt. During his time racing in Argentina, he drove Chevrolet cars and was Argentine National Champion in 1940 and 1941. He first came to Europe to race, and to marry Melissa Castro, in 1949, funded by the Argentine Automobile Club and the Argentine government.

During the rest of his life after retiring from racing Fangio sold Mercedes-Benz cars, often driving his former race cars in demonstration laps. Even before he joined the Mercedes Formula One team, in the early 1950s, Fangio had acquired the Argentine Mercedes concession. He was appointed President of Mercedes-Benz Argentina in 1974, and its Honorary President for Life in 1987

Cuban rebels kidnapped him on February 23, 1958, but he was later released, and remained a good friend of his captors afterwards.

In 1990, he was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame.

Juan Manuel Fangio died in Buenos Aires in 1995, at the age of 84. He was buried in his home town of Balcarce in Argentina.