The legend

Enzo Ferrari

Exotic Cars

Enzo Anselmo Ferrari, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI, was an Italian motor racing driver and entrepreneur, the founder of the Scuderia FerrariGrand Prix motor racing team, and subsequently of theFerrari automobile marque. He was often referred to as “il Commendatore” or “il Drake”.

Ferraris have long been considered one of the world’s fastest and most prestigious lines of cars. Today, they are powerful symbols of wealth and affluence, though the main purpose Enzo Ferrari had when designing the cars was speed – the kind of speed race car drivers and racing enthusiast would need. Though this purpose often can take a back seat to the Ferrari’s status symbol, many auto enthusiasts haven’t forgotten what has made this exotic car special.

Enzo Anselmo Ferrari(February 18, 1898 – August 14, 1988) wasborn in Modena, Italy. Ferrari grew up with little formal education but a strong desire to race cars. At the age of 10, having seen the1908 Circuit di Bologna, he decided to become a driver of race cars.

DuringWorld War Ihe was assigned to the third Alpine Artillery division of the Italian Army. His father Alfredo, as well as his older brother, also named Alfredo, died in 1916 as a result of a widespread Italian flu outbreak. Ferrari became severely ill himself in the 1918 flu pandemic and was consequently discharged from Italian service. Upon returning home he found that the family firm had collapsed.

Having no other job prospects, Ferrari eventually settled for a job at a smaller car company called CMN (Costruzioni Meccaniche Nazionali), redesigning used truck bodies into small passenger cars.

He took up racing in 1919 on the CMN team.

He left CMN in 1920 to work at Alfa Romeo and had more success racing their cars in local races. In 1923, racing in Ravenna, he acquired the Prancing Horse badge which decorated the fuselage of Francesco Baracca’s (Italy’s leading ace of WWI) SPAD S.XIII fighter, given by his mother, taken from the wreckage of the plane after his mysterious death. This icon would have to wait until 1932 to be displayed on a racing car.

In 1924 Ferrari won the Coppa Acerbo at Pescara.

His successes in local races encouraged Alfa to offer him a chance of much more prestigious competition. Ferrari turned this opportunity down and did not race again until 1927. He continued to work directly for Alfa Romeo until 1929 before starting Scuderia Ferrari as the racing team for Alfa.

Ferrari managed the development of the Alfa cars factory, and built up a team of over forty drivers, including Giuseppe Campari and Tazio Nuvolari.

Ferrari himself continued racing until 1932.

The support of Alfa Romeo lasted until 1933, when financial constraints forced Alfa to withdraw. Only at the intervention of Pirelli did Ferrari receive any cars at all. Despite the quality of the Scuderia drivers, the company won few victories. Auto Union and Mercedes dominated the era, but Ferrari achieved a notable victory when Tazio Nuvolari beat them on their home turf at the German Grand Prix in 1935.

In 1937 Alfa took control of its racing efforts again, reducing Ferrari to Director of Sports under Alfa’s engineering director. Ferrari soon left, but a contract clause restricted him from racing or designing cars for four years.

In response, Ferrari established Auto-Avio Costruzioni, a company supplying parts to other racing teams.

Ferrari did manage to manufacture two cars for the 1940 Mille Miglia, driven by Alberto Ascari and Lotario Rangoni.

During World War II his firm was forced to undertake war production for Mussolini’s fascist government. Following Allied bombing of the factory, Ferrari relocated from Modena to Maranello. It was not until after World War II that Ferrari could start making cars bearing his name, founding today’s Ferrari S.p.A. in 1947.

The first road car by Ferrari was the 125 Sport. Throughout the 1950s, Enzo Ferrari’s fast cars developed a reputation for excellence. Enzo Ferrari felt that many of his customers bought his vehicles for prestige instead of performance, causing him to develop quite a distaste for Ferrari customers.

In 1969 the problems of reduced demand and inadequate financing forced Ferrari to allow Fiat to take a stake in the company. Ferrari had previously offered Fordt he opportunity to buy the firm in 1963 for US$18 million but, late in negotiations, Ferrari withdrew once he realised that he would not have been able to retain control of the company’s sporting programme. Ferrari became joint-stock and Fiat took a small share in 1965 and then in 1969 they increased their holding to 50% of the company. (In 1988 Fiat’s holding rose to 90%).

Ferrari stepped down as managing director in 1971, and in 1974 Ferrari nominated Luca Cordero di Montezemolo as sporting director (Montezemolo is currently the president of Ferrari).

Niki Lauda won the championship in 1975 and 1977. After those successes and another title for Jody Scheckter in 1979, the company’s Formula One championship hopes fell into the doldrums.

Ferrari’s management style was autocratic and he was known to pit driver against driver in the hope of improving performance. Following the deaths of Giuseppe Campari in 1933 and Alberto Ascari in 1955, with both of whom he had a strong relationship, he chose not to get too close to his drivers.

Some critics believe that Ferrari deliberately increased the psychological pressure on his drivers, encouraging intra-team rivalries and fostering an atmosphere of intense competition for the position of number-one driver. “He thought that psychological pressure would produce better results for the drivers,” said Ferrari team driver Tony Brooks. “He would expect a driver to go beyond reasonable limits...You can drive to the maximum of your ability, but once you start psyching yourself up to do things that you don’t feel are within your ability it gets stupid. There was enough danger at that time without going over the limit.”

During the late 1950s and 1960s seven Ferrari drivers -Alberto Ascari,Eugenio Castellotti, Alfonso de Portago, Luigi Musso, Peter Collins, Wolfgang Von Trips and Lorenzo Bandini- were all killed driving Ferrari race cars. Although such a high death toll was not at all unusual in motor racing in those days, the Vatican newspaperL’Osservatore Romanodescribed Ferrari as being like the god Saturn, who consumed his own sons. In Ferrari’s defence, contemporary F1 race car driver Stirling Moss commented: “I can’t think of a single occasion where a (Ferrari) driver’s life was taken because of mechanical failure.”

In public Ferrari was careful to acknowledge the drivers who risked their life for his team, insisting that praise should be shared equally between car and driver for any race won. However, his long-time friend and company accountant Carlo Benzi related that privately Ferrari “would say that the car was the reason for any success.”

Ferrari today

As of 2008, Fiat Group owns an 85% stake in the Ferrari company. The remainder is owned by the Mubadala Development Company and Piero Ferrari, second son of founder Enzo Ferrari. The 2011 Ferrari models include the FF,Ferrari 599 GTB, 599 GTO, 458 Italia, and Ferrari California. The FF is the fastest four-seater vehicle in the world. The Ferrari 599 GTB is the highest performing 12-cylinder berlinetta ever produced by Ferrari. The Ferrari 458 Italia is the latest version of the mid-rear engined berlinetta, and the Ferrari California is a convertible with a retractable hard-top. A new Ferrari will usually have a six-figure price tag.

Ferrari also currently offers the special series model SA Aperta. Only 80 models of this type will be built in celebration of the 80^th anniversary of Pininfarina, an Italian car design firm in Cambiano, Italy, that has been employed by the Ferrari company for the design of many of their more notable vehicles.

Enzo Ferrari spent a reserved life, and rarely granted interviews. He was married to Laura Dominica Garello Ferrari (c. 1900–1978) from 1932 until her death.They had one son, Alfredo “Dino”, who was born in 1932 and groomed as Enzo’s successor, but he suffered from ill-health and died from muscular dystrophy in 1956. Enzo had a second son, Piero, with his mistress Lina Lardi in 1945. As divorce was illegal in Italy until 1975, Piero could only be recognised as Enzo’s son after Laura’s death in 1978. He is currently a vice-president of the Ferrari company, with a 10% share ownership.

Made a Cavaliere del Lavoro in 1952, to add to his honours of Cavaliere and Commendatore in the 1920s. Ferrari also received a number of honorary degrees, the Hammarskjöld Prize in 1962, the Columbus Prize in 1965, and the De Gasperi Award in 1987. In 1994, he was posthumously inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame.

Enzo Ferrari died on August 14, 1988, in Maranello at the age of 90. His death was not made public until two days later, as by Enzo’s request, to compensate for the late registration of his birth.He witnessed the launch of the Ferrari F40, one of the greatest road cars at that time, shortly before his death, which was dedicated as a symbol of his achievements. In 2003 the first car to be named after him was launched as the Enzo Ferrari.

The world’s fastest Ferrari, the F60, debuted in April 2002. The most popular Ferraris have always been the two-seated Gran Turismos. The Ferrari Owner’s club has 18 chapters around the world. The black prancing horse in the famous Ferrari logo was originally the symbol of Count Francesco Baracca, a flying ace in the Italian air force.

Ferrari of Italy is the oldest and most successful team left in the Formula One championship. The most expensive Ferrari ever sold was the 1957 Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa. It was sold for £7.2m ($12m)