Ferrari – King of Cars Documentary

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#Biography #History #Documentary

The man known to history as Enzo Ferrari  was born on the 20th of February 1898 in   Modena, a town in the region of  Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy. His father Alfredo Ferrari was born in  the nearby town of Carpi in 1859. By  

The time of Enzo’s birth, he was running a  manufacturing business from the family home,   which made metal parts for the state railways.  Enzo’s mother, Adalgisa Bisbini was thirteen   years younger than her husband. The couple  had two sons, Alfredo Jr., nicknamed Dino,  

Was born in 1896, and Enzo two years later.  The two Ferrari children lived in a bedroom   over the workshop and were woken each morning  by the workmen below. As a young boy, Enzo   observed how his father ran a business employing  around thirty people. Unlike his elder brother,  

Enzo was a poor student and preferred outdoor  activities. He later wrote that as a child,   he wanted to be “an opera singer, a  sportswriter, and lastly a racing driver.” At the time of Enzo’s birth, the motor car was  just over a decade old. The German engineer Karl  

Benz built the Benz-Patent Motorwagen in 1885  and made it commercially available in 1888. In   1903 there were fewer than thirty automobiles in  Modena, and Alfredo Ferrari owned one of them:   a French De Dion Bouton. Not long after  the invention of the motor car, the first  

Automobile races were organised in France in the  1890s. Soon, wealthy aristocrats and businessmen   were sponsoring motor races around the world.  The earliest races were from city to city,   but by 1900 it was increasingly common  to start and finish a race in the same  

Location following a circuit using public roads  which were closed for the day, with the first   purpose-built circuits being constructed by the  middle of the decade. The most prestigious races,   typically featuring the fastest cars, were given  the designation of Grand Prix. In the early 1900s,  

European countries began to adopt national racing  colours: blue for France, white for Germany,   yellow for Belgium, and green for Britain. Italy  did not adopt its famous racing red until 1907. On the 6th of September 1908, Alfredo Ferrari  took twelve-year-old Dino and ten-year-old Enzo  

To their first motor race, the third edition of  the Coppa Florio, ten laps of a 52km circuit along   the roads around the city of Bologna, some fifty  kilometres to the south of Modena. The favourites   were Felice Nazzaro and his rival Vincenzo Lancia,  both driving Fiats painted in Italian red. Nazzaro  

Cross the line in first place after four and a  half hours at an average speed of 119 kilometres   per hour, while Lancia could only manage fifth  despite setting the fastest lap. The young Enzo   was hooked, and the following year he walked two  miles across a railway line to watch a time trial  

Organised by the Modena Automobile Association.  While Enzo dreamed of being behind the wheel of   a racing car, his father urged him to become  an engineer. Despite poor grades at school,   Enzo continued to indulge his passion for sport,  and in 1914 he began writing football reports  

For La Gazzetta dello Sport, the national  sports newspaper, at the age of sixteen. The teenager’s aspirations were interrupted by  the outbreak of the First World War in Europe. The   war had begun following the assassination of the  Arch-Duke Ferdinand of the Austro-Hungarian Empire  

Which resulted in a series of declarations of  war from the Austrian Empire and Germany against   Serbia, Russia, and France. The war dramatically  escalated with Germany’s invasion of Belgium and   France in early August 1914, though Italy only  joined the conflict in May 1915, declaring war  

On Germany’s ally, the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  As Italian and Austrian soldiers battled in the   Alpine passes, Enzo’s brother Dino joined the Red  Cross and evacuated wounded Italian soldiers down   the mountains by car, before enlisting  in the Royal Italian Air Force. In 1916,  

Tragedy struck the Ferrari family as both Dino  and Alfredo Sr. died during an outbreak of flu   in Italy, leaving Enzo with his mother.  The family metalworking business closed,   and Enzo was obliged to find a job with the  fire brigade before being conscripted into  

The 3rd Mountain Artillery in 1917. In 1918 Enzo  himself fell ill during the global flu pandemic,   commonly known as the Spanish Flu, and  spent several months in a hospital. Following the end of the war in November, Enzo  went to Fiat’s headquarters in Turin with a  

Letter of recommendation from his commanding  officer. FIAT, an acronym for Fabbrica Italiana   Automobili di Torino, or Italian Automobiles  Factory of Turin, was founded in 1899 and was   led by Giovanni Agnelli, who acquired sole control  of the company in 1907. As Enzo had witnessed in  

1908, Fiat already had a well-established  racing pedigree. However, the young man’s   hopes were dashed after he was informed that  there were no vacancies. By the spring of 1919,   he managed to get a job as a test driver for the  Milan-based CMN, Costruzioni Meccaniche Nazionali,  

Which converted old trucks into cars. As a result,  Ferrari was able to buy a 2.3-litre CMN at a   deep discount and take it racing, entering a 50km  hill climb in Parma in October 1919. He completed  

The course in just over 50 minutes and finished  twelfth overall in a race that was won by Antonio   Ascari in his Fiat. At the end of November,  Ferrari entered his CMN in the Targa Florio,   one of the most prestigious events in the racing  calendar, three laps around a 148km circuit  

In Sicily. Although an early fuel tank leak  hindered his efforts and meant he took longer   than the ten-hour limit to complete the race,  he was classified as finishing in ninth place. Following these mediocre results, Ferrari ditched  his CMN and acquired a 7-litre Isotta Fraschini,  

Which he drove to third place in the 1920  edition of the Parma hill climb. The race   was won by Giuseppe Campari, a man who was both an  opera singer and a race car driver. The two men,   Campari and Ferrari, became close friends  following the race. In August 1920,  

Ferrari managed to secure a place on Alfa Romeo’s  racing team, led by his friend Campari. Founded   in 1910 in Milan, Alfa Romeo spent the First World  War making military equipment but returned to car   production in 1919. Ferrari finished in second  place in his Alfa at the Targa Florio in October  

1920 but had to wait until the 17th of June 1923  to win his first race, covering a distance of over   350km around the Savio Circuit outside Ravenna.  That evening, he met Count Enrico Baracca,   father of the celebrated fighter ace Francesco  Barraca who claimed 34 victories before crashing  

To his death in June 1918. On a later occasion,  Countess Paolina Baracca suggested that Ferrari   should place her son’s mascot of a black  prancing horse on his car for good luck. Away from the races, Ferrari worked as an Alfa  Romeo sales representative, establishing his own  

Alfa dealership in Modena in 1922. On the 28th  of April 1923, the twenty-five-year-old Enzo   Ferrari married Laura Domenica Garello, a striking  young blonde woman whom he met two years earlier.   However, despite his marriage and his first race  victory, 1923 would end in tragedy when Ferrari’s  

Teammate and friend Ugo Sivocci was killed on  the 8th of September while testing the Alfa Romeo   P1 before the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, the  purpose-built racing circuit in a royal park near   Milan which opened the previous year. Following  the tragedy, racing manager Giorgio Rimini  

Asked Ferrari to go to Turin to persuade the Fiat  engineer Vittorio Jano to join Alfa Romeo. Ferrari   was successful and for the 1924 season, Jano built  the P2, a faster and more reliable car than its   predecessor. Alfa’s drivers Ascari, Campari, and  Ferrari saw considerable success that season,  

With the latter winning three races in a row, the  most notable being the Coppa Acerbo at Pescara. Following his victory at the Circuit of Pescara,  Ferrari was set to race at the French Grand Prix   in Lyon, but a mysterious illness caused him to  withdraw from the race. This illness prevented  

Him from getting behind the wheel of a racing  car for another three years. In the meantime,   he focused on his business interests and  became Alfa’s official dealer for the   entire Emilia-Romagna region. That same year, he  met Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini,   who had become prime minister in 1922  after overthrowing the government in  

Rome. Mussolini was visiting the house of a  local senator in Emilia-Romagna and Ferrari   was asked to lead the way up the mountain  roads ahead of Mussolini’s new Alfa Romeo,   driven by the dictator himself, to  the horror of his official chauffeur. Although Alfa’s success continued into 1925,  its star driver Antonio Ascari was killed  

At the French Grand Prix in July. During  Alfa’s search for a replacement for Ascari,   Ferrari suggested the thirty-two-year-old Tazio  Nuvolari, a motorcycle champion who was showing   promise with a four wheeled vehicle. Nuvolari  crashed during his test drive at Monza and was  

Not selected. After winning the inaugural World  Manufacturers’ Championship at Monza in September,   Alfa Romeo disbanded its racing team, and Rimini  left the company, while Jano turned his attention   to designing light sports cars, including the  six-cylinder 1750 with a 1.75-litre engine.  

These developments did not prevent Ferrari  from making his return to racing in 1927,   winning a couple of minor races including one held  on a circuit around his hometown of Modena. His   mechanic for the race, the young Peppino Verdelli,  became a close friend and trusted confidant, later  

Serving as Ferrari’s secretary until his death in  1974. In 1927, two Italian aristocrats organised   the first edition of the Mille Miglia, named  after the approximately one-thousand-mile race   distance from Brescia to Rome and back. Ferrari  decided to take on the duties of team manager,  

Entering three cars into the race. Although the  Alfas initially set the pace, they fell back on   the northern leg while the Milanese OM team led by  Ferdinando Minoia registered a 1-2-3 finish. Alfa   Romeo made up for this initial disappointment with  Campari winning the next two editions of the race.

While Ferrari won a couple more races in 1928,  by 1929 his attention was increasingly focused   on being a team manager. In December of  that year, he co-founded Scuderia Ferrari   alongside Alfredo Caniato and Mario Tadini,  a pair of wealthy young drivers who had just  

Bought new Alfa Romeos from Enzo. Since Alfa  no longer had its own racing team, the factory   was happy to support Ferrari’s endeavour.  In addition to its partnership with Alfa,   the Scuderia signed sponsorships with tyre  manufacturer Pirelli and oil producer Shell.  

Scuderia Ferrari sent a team of three cars to the  fourth edition of the Mille Miglia in April 1930,   competing with a field that included  Mercedes-Benz, Maserati, and Lancia. After   some hesitation, the Alfa Romeo factory revived  its racing team and fielded six cars, including  

Reigning champion Campari, Nuvolari, and Achille  Varzi, another man who raced on both two and four   wheeled vehicles. Scuderia Ferrari’s debut went  poorly, and all three cars retired early from the   race. The event witnessed a famous duel between  Varzi and Nuvolari, with the latter latching  

Onto the former’s tail late into the night and  switching his headlights off to avoid detection   before blasting past his astonished rival in  the final stages of the race near Brescia.  Scuderia Ferrari’s next outing a  week later proved more successful,  

With Enzo driving a 1750 to third place in the  grand tourer class at the Circuito di Alessandria,   a race he had won twice in 1927 and 1928. The  team’s second podium came courtesy of Campari, who   was given permission by the factory to drive for  the Scuderia. The Alfa Romeo factory was impressed  

Enough to give the Scuderia a P2 grand prix car  with none other than Nuvolari behind the wheel,   who took the car to victory at three hill climbs  in June and July. At the following circuit race,   the Coppa Ciano held around the Tuscan port  of Livorno, Nuvolari battled against Varzi and  

Campari in the factory’s P2s, racing so intensely  that neither Nuvolari nor Varzi finished the race,   which was won by Luigi Fagioli in a Maserati.  The Scuderia was given another P2 for the   Italian Grand Prix at Monza in September, where  Nuvolari qualified in pole position. In the race,  

Both P2s were retired by lap eight, and  the race was won by Varzi in a Maserati. As the 1931 season beckoned, Ferrari secured a  loan of one million lire to move the offices of   his racing team into a larger building. Vittorio  Jano was also hard at work in the Alfa factory  

Designing the eight-cylinder 2.3-litre sports car.  The 8C-2300 was introduced at the Italian Grand   Prix in Monza in May, where Campari and Nuvolari  teamed up to win the race. After Nuvolari took   the Scuderia’s 8C to a disappointing fourth  place at the German Grand Prix at the famous  

Nürburgring circuit, he won the Coppa Ciano at  the beginning of August. The following week,   on the 9th of August, Enzo Ferrari took part in  his final race as a driver at a time trial near   Bologna. Ferrari exercised his privilege as team  boss by giving himself one of Scuderia’s two 8Cs,  

Relegating Nuvolari to the less powerful 1750.  Ferrari was confident of securing victory in   the 8C, but Nuvolari had other ideas. After  an early crash at full speed that broke his   throttle control, Nuvolari’s mechanic Decimo  Compagnoni tied his belt to the throttle and  

Used it to control the accelerator while Nuvolari  continued to steer and brake. With Ferrari already   at the end of the course celebrating an expected  victory, Nuvolari asked Compagnoni to maintain   full throttle down the hills, making up  more than seventy seconds in twenty miles  

To win the time trial by over half a minute.  Nuvolari’s astonishing display of determination,   bravery, and racing skill set a benchmark  for all of Scuderia’s drivers henceforth. Enzo Ferrari ended his racing career with eleven  victories from 41 starts. His decision to hang  

Up his racing gloves was prompted by his wife  Laura’s pregnancy. On the 19th of January 1932,   Laura gave birth to a son, named Alfredo  and known as Dino after his late uncle and   grandfather. Three years before Dino’s birth,  Enzo began a lifelong affair with Lina Lardi,  

An arrangement that Laura was obliged to accept.  Amidst these changes in Enzo’s family life,   changes were afoot in the management structure of  the Scuderia. Alfredo Caniato had bought Tadini’s   shares in the business but decided to offload  his entire stake to Count Carlo Felice Trossi,  

A talented driver from a banking family who became  president of the company. At the Mille Miglia in   April Ferrari entered no fewer than nine cars,  including five 2300s, three 1750s, and a 1500.   While Baconin Borzacchini won the race for Alfa’s  factory team, Scuderia finished second and third.

By July 1932, Ferrari adopted a logo with  Barocca’s black prancing horse on a yellow   background, the colour of his native Modena.  Over the course of the year, Jano had been   working on the single-seater P3, considered one  of the greatest cars of that generation, but it  

Wasn’t until August that the Scuderia was allowed  to use the P3, which Nuvolari drove to victory at   the Coppa Acerbo. Despite the unrivalled success  of the P3, which won almost every single race it   entered in 1932, by the following year Alfa Romeo  was in financial trouble and subject to greater  

Levels of government control. When Alfa announced  that it would suspend its racing programme in   early 1933, Ferrari unsuccessfully sought to take  over the racing team. With the P3s locked away,   Scuderia had to make do with the 8Cs. In  March, Scuderia scored its first victory  

At the Mille Miglia with Nuvolari behind the  wheel. In the Monaco Grand Prix in April,   Nuvolari and Varzi’s Bugatti battled for the  lead around ninety-nine laps of the famous street   circuit until the former’s engine caught fire. Nuvolari was unhappy that Scuderia was making  

Him race with old cars, and in June he agreed  to join Maserati, taking Bozzarchini and the   talented Piero Taruffi with him. Knowing that  Alfa would be alarmed by Nuvolari’s defection,   Ferrari prevailed upon Alfa to use the six P3s in  return for an annual payment of 1.7 million lire,  

Financed by Pirelli. He signed a new trio  of lead drivers, including Luigi Fagioli,   Louis Chiron from Monaco, and his old friend  Campari, who at forty years old was planning to   retire at the end of the season. After Ferrari’s  P3 scored a series of convincing victories over  

The summer, Fagioli beat Nuvolari’s Maserati at  the Italian Grand Prix at Monza on the 10th of   September. That afternoon, the track was host  to a second race called the Monza Grand Prix,   with three heats with a final around the 10km  banked circuit. Campari was leading the race in  

The second heat when he was involved in a four-car  shunt that killed both himself and Bozzarchini.  While mourning the death of his friend,  Enzo was also struggling to come to terms   with the fact that his son Dino was  suffering from a debilitating illness,  

Diagnosed as Duchenne’s muscular dystrophy, a  condition that attacks boys and limits their life   expectancy to around twenty years old. Ferrari  was depressed entering the 1934 season. Campari   was dead and Fagioli accepted a lucrative  contract with Mercedes. Ferrari responded by   hiring Nuvolari’s rival Achille Varzi, alongside  two Algerian drivers, Marcel Lehoux and Guy Moll,  

Who had been put forward by Alfa Romeo. At the  Monaco Grand Prix in 1934, Chiron was cruising to   victory until the last lap, when Moll forced him  into a spin and won the race. At the Mille Miglia,   Varzi was several minutes behind Nuvolari on the  return leg north until Ferrari was informed that  

Rain was on the way and ordered his mechanics to  make special wet weather tyres by cutting grooves   into them. After initial protests, Varzi did so  and successfully overhauled Nuvolari in the rain.   While the Scuderia’s P3s saw initial success in  1934, the Italian cars were being outcompeted  

By the German manufacturers Mercedes-Benz and  Ferdinand Porsche’s Auto Union, both of whom   received a subsidy from Adolf Hitler’s government.  At the Coppa Acerbo in August, Moll was chasing   down Fagioli when he was killed in an accident at  the age of twenty-four, four months after bursting  

Onto the racing world stage with great promise.  By the end of the year, the Germans were beating   the Italians on Italian soil, and Varzi decided  to sign for Auto Union. The Scuderia’s fortunes   were saved when Nuvolari announced that he  would return to race for Ferrari in 1935.

Facing the German threat, Ferrari asked  his technical director Luigi Bazzi to   build a car with two P3 engines, which  came to be known as the Bimotore. Though   this violated the 750 kg weight limit that had  been introduced for Grand Prix racing in 1934,  

The Scuderia could still compete in the Formula  Libre category. After the Scuderia’s P3s struggled   against the Germans at the start of the 1935  season, Ferrari unleashed the Bimotore at Tunis,   but the heavy car chewed up its tyres and  proved unsuitable for track racing. Ferrari had  

Nuvolari reach 200mph on a stretch of highway in  a 6.3-litre Bimotore as a publicity stunt, but the   car was soon scrapped. While Rudolf Caracciola ran  away with the racing championship in his Mercedes,   Nuvolari scored an unexpected upset at the  Nürburgring on the 28th of July, defeating  

His rivals on their home turf. In September,  Jano delivered the 3.8-litre 8C 35 from the   Alfa factory, but the new car was still no match  for the Germans. Jano’s May 1936 twelve-cylinder   model was still underpowered when compared to  the sixteen-cylinders of the Auto Unions, but  

Nuvolari managed to win some races in his 12C in  circuits with tighter corners. At the Coppa Ciano,   after being forced to retire his 12C, Nuvolari  jumped into teammate Carlo Pintacuda’s 8C and won   a famous victory. In October, Nuvolari drove the  12C to victory at the Vanderbilt Cup in New York,  

Scuderia’s first trip to the United States. Nuvolari’s victory in New York was a great   political coup for Benito Mussolini, who was keen  to demonstrate Italy’s sporting prowess. While   Mussolini had signed the Axis Pact with Hitler  in 1936, he still wanted to demonstrate Italian  

Superiority. He did so by trying to outcompete  the Germans in motor racing. Accordingly,   the Alfa Romeo board decided to return to  racing, agreeing to acquire an 80 percent stake   in Scuderia Ferrari while allowing Enzo to  continue as team boss. As part of this agreement,  

The engineer Gioachino Colombo joined  Ferrari. Knowing that he could not compete   effectively with the Germans, Ferrari turned his  attention to voiturette racing, which restricted   engines to 1.5 litres. When Colombo proposed a  rear-engine design inspired by Auto Union’s cars,  

Ferrari turned him down, remarking “It’s always  been the ox that pulls the cart.” While Scuderia   began the 1937 season well with Pintacuda  scoring a second victory at the Mille Miglia,   the 12Cs were constantly bested by the Germans.  On a second trip to New York, the Germans were  

Now part of the field and won the race easily,  while Nuvolari’s 12C broke down. Frustrated by   the poor performance of the 12C, Nuvolari  defected to Auto Union, and Jano was fired.  On the 1st of January 1938, Alfa Romeo acquired  full control of Scuderia Ferrari and renamed  

The outfit Alfa Corse. Ferrari continued to  run the team from Milan, signing a contract   that prevented him from building cars under  the Ferrari name for four years if he were   to leave Alfa. In 1938, Colombo presented the  Alfa Romeo Tipo 158, nicknamed the Alfetta,  

For the voiturette series. The car won on its  debut in Livorno in August driven by Emilio   Villoresi, who battled with his brother Luigi’s  Maserati throughout the race. While Alfa Corse   continued to send bigger cars to grand prix  races, the Germans remained dominant. In an  

Attempt to regain racing glory, the Italian  racing authorities announced that from 1939   grand prix events in the country would be  held according to voiturette regulations.   In advance of the first race in Tripoli in  Italian North Africa in May 1939, Mercedes  

Built a voiturette in secret and astonished  the Italians with a 1-2 finish on race day. Following of the race in Tripoli, Ferrari was  sacked as director of Alfa Corse. In the meantime,   Hitler was marching his armies into Poland,  prompting Britain and France to declare war  

On Germany. For the time being, Italy remained  neutral in the Second World War while continuing   to build up military capacity. In the autumn of  1939, Ferrari set up his own business in Modena   under the name Auto Avio Costruzioni to supply  parts for the Italian air force. Around the  

Same time, he received offers to build cars  for the Mille Miglia, a race with nine laps   over a 100-mile circuit near Brescia, including  one from the twenty-one-year-old Alberto Ascari,   the son of Ferrari’s late friend and mentor.  Under the AAC brand, Ferrari modified a Fiat  

508 and added an eight-cylinder 1.5-litre engine,  giving it the name 815. While Ferrari’s engineers   were optimistic during testing, on race day both  cars retired from the race with mechanical faults.  On the 10th of June 1940, while German tanks  were cutting French defences into pieces,  

Italy declared war on Britain and France. Ferrari  had joined the Italian Fascist Party in 1934,   motivated primarily by a desire to promote his  business interests and remain on good terms   with the government. At the age of forty-two, he  was too old to join the army but was part of the  

Supply chain for the military. In addition  to aircraft parts, he made machine tools   for the manufacture of weapons. At the end of  1942, fearing that his factory in Modena might   be bombed, Ferrari moved his operations to the  small village of Maranello about ten miles away,  

Buying a group of farms covering 30 hectares  in total. While Ferrari was setting up a new   headquarters for both AAC and Scuderia Ferrari,  Mussolini’s government was overthrown in July   1943 following the Allied invasion of Sicily,  and the new government joined the Allies,  

While a German puppet regime led by Mussolini  was established in northern Italy. During the   final months of the war, Ferrari’s factory was  bombed twice during Allied raids. Shortly after   the second bombing in April 1945, Mussolini  and his mistress were killed by partisans in  

Milan and the Germans surrendered in Italy. On the 22nd of May 1945, Ferrari’s mistress   Lina Lardi gave him a second son, named Piero.  Enzo’s two families continued to co-exist,   with the thirteen-year-old Dino remaining  his heir to the business despite his  

Illness. During the war, AAC had been a highly  profitable company manufacturing machine tools,   but Ferrari decided to return to building sports  cars. Ferrari’s former employees and associates   during the 1930s had all gone their separate ways,  but Ferrari managed to convince Luigi Bazzi to  

Return. Gioachino Colombo agreed to help Ferrari  design the twelve-cylinder 1.5-litre 125 S before   returning to Alfa’s revived racing programme,  and the project was taken over by Giuseppe Busso,   an aerospace engineer. In late 1946, with  Ferrari’s 125 S nearing completion, the driver  

And salesman Luigi Chinetti, who had established  himself in the United States before the war,   encouraged Ferrari to make his cars available  for the American market. By November 1946,   Ferrari decided to wind down the machine tool  business and focus solely on cars. On the 12th  

Of March 1947, the forty-nine-year-old  Enzo Ferrari was the first man to drive a   car bearing his name on it the 125 S. When the  125 S debuted at Piacenza on the 11th of May,   Enzo described his car’s results as a “promising  failure,” although both Ferraris failed to finish  

The race, Franco Cortese had been leading with  three laps to go until his petrol pump failed. Cortese and the 125 S won its first victory  a fortnight later at the Rome Grand Prix,   which took place around a circuit near the Roman  Baths of Caracalla. Cortese racked up two more  

Victories for Ferrari over the coming weeks. These  early successes inspired the fifty-four-year-old   Tazio Nuvolari to make a couple of appearances for  Scuderia Ferrari in the 125 S. He won both races,   including one at Parma on the 13th of July, where  he recovered from an engine fault at the beginning  

Of the race to overhaul the entire field and  lead Cortese to the line in a 1-2 finish. With   the 125 already an established race winner, Busso  built a 1.9-litre model, the 159, for the race   in Modena at the end of September, but the new  cars were no match for the Maseratis of Alberto  

Ascari and Luigi Villoresi. Two weeks later,  Raymond Sommer, who had won the Spa 24 Hours   in Belgium for the Scuderia in 1936, returned  to Ferrari to take victory at Turin in a 159.  In 1947 Ferrari managed to coax Colombo away from  Alfa, joining a workforce that was now over 250  

Men. The company began to sell cars to wealthy  amateur racers, the first customers being the   aristocratic brothers Gabriele and Soave Besana,  who bought a 2-litre Ferrari 166 Spyder Corsa at   the end of 1947. Driving his own Spyder Corsa,  the Russian émigré Prince Igor Trubetskoy joined  

Clemente Biondetti in winning the 1948 Targa  Florio in April, Ferrari’s first victory in   a major international race. At the beginning of  May, Nuvolari drove the Spyder Corsa at the Mille   Miglia, stretching his lead to almost half an hour  despite the car’s bodywork falling to pieces. He  

Was less than 200 miles from the finish line when  a bolt sheared and ended his race. Biondetti,   driving a coupé model of the 166 S, went on  to take victory. At the Monaco Grand Prix on  

The 16th of May 1948, Trubetskoy became the first  man to drive a Ferrari in a grand prix, though he   crashed on lap 58. The Grand Prix season was being  dominated by Maserati and Alfa Romeo, despite  

Varzi’s death in practice before the Swiss Grand  Prix on the 1st of July. At the Italian Grand Prix   in Turin on the 5th of September, Sommer secured  Ferrari’s first podium finish with third place.  During the winter of 1949, Ferrari sent a  125 to participate in a series of races in  

South America. The Ferrari driver was  forty-three-year-old Giuseppe Farina,   a protégé and friend of Nuvolari’s who had driven  Alfas for the Scuderia in the 1930s. While Farina   retired from four out of the six races, he won  the other two. For the European season, Ferrari  

Hired Alberto Ascari and Luigi Villoresi, the two  most talented drivers of the day. They finished   second and third at their debut for Ferrari on  the 19th of June at the Belgian Grand Prix in Spa,   before Ascari won the Swiss Grand Prix two weeks  later in a 125GPC. After his engine was fitted  

With a supercharger, Ascari scored a hattrick  on home turf at Monza on the 11th of September,   qualifying on pole and setting the fastest  lap on his way to race victory. Having found   the formula for grand prix success, Ferrari  continued its dominance of the Mille Miglia  

With Biondetti driving the open-top 166 Barchetta  to victory in May 1949. On the 25-26th of June,   Ferrari made its debut at the 24 Hours of Le  Mans, fielding two 166s. Luigi Chinetti teamed   up with the British aristocrat Lord Selsdon  in one of them and won the race by a lap,  

With the former behind the wheel  for more than twenty-three hours. In 1950, the world’s motorsport governing body,  the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile,   or FIA, established the Formula One drivers’  world championship. Ahead of the new season,   Enzo Ferrari had instructed Aurelio Lampredi  to design a new grand prix car with a 4.5-litre  

Engine, prompting Colombo to return to Alfa  Romeo at the end of the year. Lampredi’s new   car was not ready until the end of the year,  so Ferrari had to do with 125s. Accordingly,   the inaugural Formula One championship was  dominated by Alfa Romeo. In a seven-race season,  

Including the Indianapolis 500 which  European teams absented themselves from,   Farina and the Argentine Juan Manuel Fangio won  three races each, with the former winning the   title with thirty championship points. The four  Ferrari drivers managed sixteen points between t  

Hem. On the open road, the Scuderia continued its  dominance of the Mille Miglia with a victory by   the amateur Giannino Marzotto, the fourth man to  buy a Ferrari. At the following edition in 1951,   Villoresi took the honours for Ferrari with  a 4.1-litre V12 engine designed by Lampredi. 

Ferrari’s continued success in road races  established the company’s reputation for   building reliable cars, but Enzo was desperate to  win the Formula One championship with Lampredi’s   4.5-litre Ferrari 375. The season started with  Farina and Fangio continuing their dominance   of the previous year, winning the first three  European races. At the British Grand Prix at  

Silverstone on the 14th of July 1951, the young  Argentine José Froilán González held off Fangio   on his way to Ferrari’s first victory in the  Formula One championship. Scuderia Ferrari was on   its way to becoming the most successful team in F1  history. Ascari followed up on González’s success  

With a brace of victories at the Nürburgring and  Monza, but fell short of snatching the title from   Fangio’s hands at the final round in Spain. In  September 1951, Enzo Ferrari offered a drive to   the talented nineteen-year-old Englishman Stirling  Moss at the non-championship race in Bari,  

With the option of becoming a full member of the  team in 1952. Moss was non-committal, having also   received an offer from British Racing Motors, but  agreed to drive the 375 in Bari. When he arrived,   he was informed by a Ferrari mechanic that  Taruffi was due to drive the car and stormed off,  

Vowing never to drive for Ferrari in his life. In 1952, reigning champions Alfa Romeo withdrew   from the Formula One championship. In an effort  to attract more cars, the FIA decided that for the   next two seasons, the F1 championship would adopt  Formula Two rules, restricting engine size to two  

Litres. Lampredi designed a four-cylinder 2-litre  engine to fit the 375 chassis, creating the   Ferrari 500. Ascari missed the season opener in  Switzerland to participate in the Indy 500 on the   30th of May in the obsolete 375. Although he ran  as high as eighth place, the 375 was outclassed  

By its American rivals and Ascari retired from  the race. Days later, Fangio was injured in a   non-championship race in Monza for Maserati. After  his return to Europe, Ascari won the six remaining   championship races, handily walking away with  the title. Ascari won the first three European  

Races of the 1953 season, setting a record of nine  consecutive Grand Prix victories. Ascari’s run was   broken at the French Grand Prix in Reims on the  5th of July 1953 in what has been called the Race   of the Century. Ascari and his English teammate  Mike Hawthorn battled at the top of the field  

Against Argentines Fangio and González in their  Maseratis over the 60-lap, 500km race distance.   The Englishman secured the narrowest of victories  ahead of Fangio and González, with Ascari only   four seconds behind in fourth. Ascari came back  to win two more races to defend his world title. 

While Ascari was winning new glory for  the Scuderia, on the 11th of August 1953,   Tazio Nuvolari died at the age of sixty-one.  As he mourned the loss of a friend and the   greatest driver he had ever known, Ferrari also  had to come to terms with the fact that his  

Twenty-one-year-old son Dino was dying. Ferrari’s  anxieties were exacerbated by the announcement   that Mercedes would enter the 1954 championship,  with Fangio as its lead driver. Things went from   bad to worse when Ferrari refused to increase  Ascari’s salary during contract negotiations,  

Leading the latter to switch to Lancia along  with Villoresi.The 1954 season was a disaster   for Ferrari, with Fangio running away with the  title by winning six out of the eight European   races. Ferrari settled for a victory each by  González and Hawthorn, the latter in the unusual  

And unreliable 2.5-litre 553, nicknamed Squalo or  shark. Ascari’s Lancia retired from every single   grand prix it entered, though he managed to put an  end to Ferrari’s run of six consecutive victories   at the Mille Miglia earlier in the year. The 1955 season proved even more disappointing,  

With the only Ferrari victory coming from  Frenchman Maurice Tritignant at the Monaco Grand   Prix on the 22nd of May after Ascari’s Lancia  crashed into the harbour. Less than a week later,   Ascari was killed while testing his friend  Eugenio Castellotti’s Ferrari 750 S sportscar at  

Monza in an accident that remains a mystery. The  tragedy led Lancia to withdraw from motor racing,   following which Ferrari stepped in to take  over the Lancia cars with financial backing   from Fiat. Enzo Ferrari had built a brand that  represented the thrill and excitement of driving  

At high speed on four wheels, but it carried with  it the risk of early death, not only on the track   but also on the road. Another tragedy struck  the motorsport world at Le Mans in 1955 when   the French driver Pierre Levegh was launched into  the air in his Mercedes, killing himself and 83  

Spectators. Four F1 races were cancelled,  Switzerland banned motorsport entirely,   and Mercedes announced its withdrawal from F1 at  the end of another victorious season for Fangio.   With Ferrari looking for a lead driver and Fangio  looking for a race seat, the defending champion  

Drove a modified Lancia D50s V8 and defended his  title in his first and only season with Ferrari   with three victories and a couple of second-place  finishes, while his English teammate Peter Collins   won at Spa and Reims on his way to third place  in the championship, which he would have won if  

He had not selflessly allowed Fangio to jump  into his car to share second place at Monza. On the eve of Collins’ victory at Reims, Dino  Ferrari died on the 30th of June 1956 at the   age of twenty-four. Dino had been working  in the Maranello factory alongside Vittorio  

Jano to design V6 and V8 engines for sports  cars. In late 1956 Ferrari bequeathed the   name Dino to the new V6 engine, and from  1957 to 1976 the Dino name was given to a   whole series of cars made at Maranello with  a V6 or V8. As Enzo Ferrari was well aware,  

Tragedy begets tragedy in motor racing. In March  1957, Castellotti was killed at Modena testing the   new Ferrari 801. At the Mille Miglia in May, Piero  Taruffi won the race in a Ferrari 1-2 finish,   but his Spanish teammate Count Alfonso de Portago  was killed alongside his navigator and ten  

Spectators, including five children. The Italian  government responded with a ban on road racing. After a winless 1957 F1 season in which Fangio  won his fifth and final title with Maserati,   Ferrari entered the 1958 championship  with the Ferrari 246 F1, the first to  

Boast a Dino V6 engine. After an  unpromising start to the season,   Mike Hawthorn won Ferrari’s first victory of the  year at the French Grand Prix on the 6th of July,   a race marred by the death of his teammate Luigi  Musso. Musso’s death prompted an editorial from  

L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s official  newspaper, condemning Ferrari for sending so   many drivers to their deaths. At the British  Grand Prix at Silverstone on the 19th of July,   Peter Collins scored Ferrari’s second victory of  the year. However, at the German Grand Prix two  

Weeks later, Collins was killed when he ran wide  onto the grass, causing the car to flip into the   air and throw him against a tree. Second place  for Hawthorn at the final race of the season in   Morocco was enough to secure him the championship,  beating Moss by a single point despite only a  

Single victory to the latter’s four. Having lost  several teammates within the last twelve months,   Hawthorn decided against signing a contract  with Ferrari for the 1959 season. Three   months after his retirement, he died in a road  accident in England at the age of twenty-nine.

Having won four of the first nine F1 world  championships, more than any other constructor,   by the late 1950s Ferrari was also becoming  successful in the Americas. In 1957 and 1958,   the American Phil Hill teamed up with Peter  Collins to win the Grand Prix of Venezuela,  

The Buenos Aires 1,000km, and the 12-hour  race at Sebring in Florida. Hill began to   race in F1 in late 1958, but with the  loss of Collins, Hawthorn, and Musso,   he was already a leading driver. Enzo Ferrari  added to his roster by recruiting the Englishman  

Tony Brooks, who had won three races in 1958 as  Stirling Moss’s teammate at the British outfit   Vanwall. The main challenge to Ferrari came  from British constructors Cooper and Lotus,   whose lightweight rear-engine cars were vastly  different from Ferrari’s idea of a grand prix  

Car. While Brooks won two races in a Dino  246 and finished second in the championship,   the Australian Jack Brabham claimed three race  victories on his way to the title in his Cooper. By 1960, Enzo Ferrari converted his business into  a limited liability company, pending the outcome  

Of a lawsuit following the 1957 Mille Miglia  tragedy. The team’s only victory in the 1960 world   championship came at Monza in a race boycotted  by the British manufacturers on safety grounds,   while Brabham won a second world title. New  regulations were introduced in 1961 limiting  

Engines to 1.5 litres. Ferrari entered a  rear-engine car for the first time in an   F1 championship, the Dino 156, nicknamed the  Sharknose. The 156 dominated the 1961 season,   winning four out of the first six races in the  calendar, with the other two won by Stirling  

Moss in a privately-entered Lotus. By the Italian  Grand Prix at Monza on the 10th of September, the   German aristocrat Wolfgang von Trips had a narrow  championship lead over Phil Hill in second place.   Early on in the race, von Trips was on his way  past Jim Clark’s Lotus when the two cars touched,  

Sending the Ferrari driver into the crowd,  leading to the loss of his life and fourteen   others. Hill won the race and the championship  by one point from the unfortunate German. Hill’s title defence in the 1962 season was  undermined by a revolt against Enzo Ferrari  

At Maranello at the end of 1961, resulting  in the departure of eight senior managers,   including sales manager Girolamo Gardini, team  manager Romolo Tavoni, and chief engineer Carlo   Chiti. The Ferrari senior staff resented Laura  Ferrari’s increased interference in the company,   while others, hoping to take advantage  of the recent championship victory,  

Demanded a pay rise, which was refused. When the  eight men presented Ferrari with an ultimatum,   the boss stood his ground and let them go,  though Laura would also take a step back from   the company’s affairs. With the racing team in  crisis, Ferrari’s road car business enterprise  

Was thriving. Kings and princes made the  pilgrimage to Maranello to buy a Ferrari   from Enzo, including Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi  of Iran and Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands,   a motor racing fan who congratulated  Ferrari by telegram after every F1 victory.

The Dutch prince sent no such telegrams in  1962. The new chief engineer, Mauro Foghieri,   tinkered with the 156 but failed to make any  significant improvements. After three podiums   in the first three races of the season, Hill  fell away and finished the season sixth in a  

Championship won by Englishman Graham Hill in a  BRM. Disheartened and exhausted, in early 1962 the   sixty-three-year-old Enzo Ferrari looked to sell  part of the business. In early 1963, he received   an offer of $18 million from Ford to acquire a 90  percent stake in the company. In a meeting with  

Ford executives on the 20th of May 1963, Ferrari  took issue with Ford’s insistence that he would   have to obtain permission to increase the racing  team’s budget and walked out of the discussions.   Upon learning of the failed negotiations, Ford  chairman Henry Ford II, the grandson and namesake  

Of the company’s founder, determined to humiliate  Ferrari. Ferrari’s negotiations with Ford caused   Fiat executives to take notice, though it would  take several years for any deal to emerge. For the 1963 F1 season, Ferrari secured  the services of Englishman John Surtees,  

A motorcycle champion turned sports car racer in  the mould of Nuvolari and Varzi. Surtees raced for   Ferrari across all categories, winning the German  Grand Prix at the Nürburgring in his debut season   for the Prancing Horse. In 1964, Surtees won  two races on his way to the world title ahead  

Of Graham Hill and reigning champion Jim Clark.  Surtees failed to win a single race the following   season, complaining that Enzo had closed himself  off at Maranello and was still failing to adapt   to modern innovations. Surtees then complained  that his car for the 1966 season, the 312 with  

A 3-litre V12, was slower and less reliable than  the previous year’s car. After retiring from the   Monaco Grand Prix, Surtees won the next race at  Spa on the 12th of June. The following weekend,   Surtees arrived at Le Mans to defend Ferrari’s  honour against three Ford GT40s. When team manager  

Eugenio Dragoni asked Surtees to allow his Italian  teammate Ludovico Scarfiotti to start the race,   the Englishman stormed off. The three Fords  swept the podium, while the sole Ferrari   crashed out nine hours into the race. Ford  had broken Ferrari’s six straight victories  

At Le Mans, fulfilling Henry Ford’s promise.  Surtees left the team, whose only further win in   the F1 championship came when Scarfiotti took the  flag in Monza in front of a jubilant home crowd. For the 1967 F1 season, Ferrari fielded Lorenzo  Bandini and the young New Zealander Chris Amon.  

The pair teamed up effectively to win two major  sportscar races early in the year, but Bandini   was fatally injured and Monaco was hurt when  his car burst into flames near the harbour.   The Ferrari-Ford rivalry moved into the Grand Prix  arena at the Dutch Grand Prix on the 4th of June,  

Where Jim Clark took his Lotus, powered by a V8  Ford Cosworth engine, to victory. At Le Mans,   Ferrari failed to seize back the title from  Ford, settling for a second-place finish. Indeed,   Ferrari would not win again at Le Mans until  2023. The following year, Ferrari was subjected  

To further humiliation as Ford-powered cars won  eleven out of the twelve races on the F1 calendar,   with the Belgian Jacky Ickx’s victory for Ferrari  at the French Grand Prix the sole exception. Enzo   attempted to recruit the talented young Scotsman  Jackie Stewart for the 1968 season but refused  

The latter’s extensive list of conditions. While  Stewart would win the first of three world titles   in 1969, Ferrari had its worst season since 1950. Ferrari’s struggles in F1 did not prevent the   Prancing Horse brand from becoming increasingly  popular among film stars and celebrities.  

Nevertheless, motor racing was an expensive  endeavour and the company’s finances were showing   it. In 1965, Fiat had taken a small stake in  Ferrari and began producing a car with the Dino V6   engine. On the 18th of June 1969, Ferrari signed a  deal with Fiat in Turin. In a deal worth 7 billion  

Lire, or around $11 million, Fiat acquired a  40 percent stake, with Enzo’s 50 percent to be   ceded to Fiat at his death, while the remaining  10 percent went to his son Piero and his heirs.   While Francesco Bellicardi would take over as  managing director of the company, Enzo retained  

Full control over the racing team. With the  financial banking of Europe’s largest automobile   manufacturer, the future of the Ferrari business  was secure. For the next four F1 seasons, Ickx   led the Ferrari team in its quest for an elusive  F1 title. He came closest in 1970 when his three  

Race victories took him to second place behind the  Austrian Jochen Rindt, whose five wins earlier in   the season were enough to secure him a posthumous  world championship after being killed while   practicing at Monza with three races remaining. Despite the opening of a new test track at  

Fiorano on the grounds of the Maranello factory  in April 1972, the F1 team continued to struggle,   though Ferrari’s retained its honour in sportscar  racing. After fruitlessly tinkering with his   engineering team and withdrawing from sportscar  racing, in June 1973 Ferrari appointed the   twenty-six-year-old Luca di Montezemolo as his  new sporting director. Montezemolo looked for  

A new lead driver and after failing to secure  his first choice, the Englishman James Hunt,   he approached the Austrian Niki Lauda. With  Montezemelo in charge and Lauda behind the wheel,   the new Ferrari team cast away old sentimental  Italian ideas in the quest for victory on the  

Track. With Forghieri’s new 312B3 at his disposal  for the 1974 season, Lauda and his Swiss teammate   Clay Regazonni won a total of three races.  Regazonni’s consistency gave him second place   in the championship, while Lauda finished fourth  with two race wins. Lauda’s promise was fulfilled  

In Forghieri’s streamlined 312T with a powerful  flat twelve-cylinder engine, running away with the   title in 1975 with five victories and three  more podium finishes. After overhauling the   Ferrari racing team, Montezemolo was promoted up  the ladder within the Fiat organisation in 1976.

Lauda began his title defence impressively,  racking up five victories during the first   nine races of the season, with a haul of 61 points  more than double that of his closest competitors.   On the 1st of August at the Nürburgring, Lauda’s  Ferrari crashed into a barrier and caught fire.  

Several drivers stopped on the track and rushed  to extricate the unconscious Lauda. Lauda missed   the next two races but astonished Ferrari and the  racing community when he demanded to compete at   Monza on the 12th of September, six weeks after  his accident, hoping to protect his championship  

Lead. Still wearing bandages over his head, Lauda  nevertheless managed a fourth-place finish. Though   Lauda finished third at Watkins Glen in New  York in the penultimate race of the season,   Hunt had scored a brace of victories and  was three points behind Lauda heading into  

The Japanese Grand Prix at Fuji. In a soaking wet  race, Lauda decided to retire on the second lap,   while Hunt finished third, enough to  win the championship by a single point.  The circumstances of the final race increased  tensions between Lauda and Ferrari, but the  

Former was retained for the 1977 season, albeit  with the Argentine Carlos Reutemann as designated   team leader. Keen to make a point, Lauda won  three races and came second in six more to   clinch the title with fourth place at Watkins Glen  with two races still to go. Earlier in the year,  

Lauda secretly decided to move to the Brabham team  the coming season. Lauda turned down Ferrari’s   counteroffer, the most generous he made to any  driver, and left the team without competing in   the final two races. As disappointed as he  was to lose his defending champion, Ferrari  

Had identified a young French-Canadian talent,  Gilles Villeneuve, who took Lauda’s seat for   the final two races without scoring any points. On the 27th of February 1978, Laura Ferrari died   at the age of seventy-seven. While publicly  mourning the loss of his wife of almost sixty  

Years, Enzo made preparations for Lina and Piero  to move into the house in Modena. Though Piero had   taken his mother’s surname, Enzo took steps for  Piero to take the Ferrari name. In November 1968,   shortly after marrying Floriana Nalin, Piero’s  daughter and Enzo’s granddaughter Antonella was  

Born. Like his late half-brother, Piero was  playing a significant role in the business,   serving as an English translator in his father’s  negotiations with drivers and playing a leading   role in the resurgent racing team. In the 1978  F1 season, Reutermann won four races but only  

Finished third in the championship. Gilles  Villeneuve’s sole victory came at the final   race of the season in his native Canada. In 1979,  Villeneuve was partnered by the South African Jody   Scheckter as team leader. With Foghieri’s 312T4,  the Ferrari men won three races apiece, with  

Scheckter narrowly winning the championship ahead  of his teammate. Ferrari’s faith in Villeneuve’s   talent was repaid, and the latter awaited a world  title that would surely come his way. Having run   away with the title the previous year, the 1980  season was an unmitigated disaster for Ferrari,  

With the team’s best result being a pair of  fifth-place finishes by Villeneuve. In 1981,   Ferrari produced the turbocharged 126C  which enabled Villeneuve to win two races,   though he would only see the chequered  flag on six occasions that season.

The 1982 season began poorly, with the best  showing being a sixth place finish at the   Brazilian Grand Prix for Villeneuve’s teammate  Didier Pironi. At the fourth race of the season,   the San Marino Grand Prix at the nearby Italian  town of Imola, most constructors joined a boycott  

Organised by Bernie Ecclestone’s Formula One  Constructors’ Association following a disagreement   about F1 regulations. A Ferrari victory was  a formality, and Enzo instructed his drivers   not to race each other in order to guarantee a  1-2 finish. Pironi disobeyed these instructions  

And overtook Villeneuve on the final lap to take  the victory. Villeneuve vowed to take revenge two   weeks later at the Belgian Grand Prix in Zolder  on the weekend of 8-9th of May. On his way into   the pits during the final qualifying session,  Villeneuve crashed fatally after running into  

The back of a slower car. Once again, Ferrari had  lost a talented driver whom he regarded as a son.   Despite only six victories in four seasons  for Ferrari, Villeneuve’s determination and   ferocity behind the wheel ensured that he  retained a legion of fans who continue to  

Honour his memory several decades after his death. In the 1983 season, an all-French driver line-up   of René Arnoux and Patrick Tambay won a total  of four races, finishing third and fourth in   the driver’s championship while delivering  Ferrari the constructors’ title. Although  

Ferraris continued to win a few races with  the Italian Michele Alboreto and the Austrian   Gerhard Berger at the wheel, Enzo Ferrari  would not live to see further championship   glory. Scuderia Ferrari would have to wait until  1999 for another constructor’s championship,  

And for Michael Schumacher to win driver titles  for the team. In 1987, the eighty-nine-year-old   Enzo Ferrari celebrated the fortieth anniversary  of the first car he built with the Ferrari name.   As part of the commemoration, the Maranello  factory produced the F40, a mid-engine,  

Rear-wheel drive road car that Ferrari hoped would  recapture the raw spirit of the early 125 and 166.  In his ninetieth year in 1988, Enzo Ferrari  continued to receive accolades from all quarters,   including an honorary degree from Modena  University at the end of January. On the  

21st of February, Ferrari’s granddaughter  Antonella gave birth to a son named Enzo.   Although Ferrari had been condemned by the  Catholic Church less than thirty years earlier,   on the 4th of June Pope John Paul II came to  the Ferrari factory at Maranello, where Piero  

Drove him around the Fiorano test track. Enzo was  too ill to leave his home at Modena and the Pope   had to settle for a phone call. Despite the papal  blessing for his health, Enzo Ferrari died on the  

Morning of the 14th of August 1988 at the age of  ninety. He was laid to rest at the family tomb in   the cemetery of San Cataldo in Modena, joining  his parents, his wife Laura, and his son Dino.

In 2002, Ferrari unveiled a new flagship model,  the Ferrari Enzo, named in honour of its late   founder, with a 6-litre V12 engine producing 651  horsepower and capable of a top speed in excess of   200mph. Over the years, Fiat acquired Ferrari’s  former rivals Alfa Romeo, Lancia, and Maserati.  

In 2009, following the Global Financial Crisis,  Fiat entered a partnership with American Big Three   manufacturer Chrysler, followed by a full merger  in 2014. In 2016, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles spun   off Ferrari, which became a listed company on the  New York and Milan stock exchanges. John Elkann,  

The heir of the Agnelli empire, retains a 25%  stake as chairman, while Piero Ferrari sits on   the board as vice chairman with his 10% stake. Enzo Ferrari’s legacy lives on in the sea of   red flags emblazoned with the Prancing Horse  logo that follows the Formula One team around  

The world during the Grand Prix season. After a  moderately successful career as a racing driver,   he saw greater success as a racing team manager  in partnership with Alfa Romeo, fielding some   of the greatest drivers of the age, including  Campari, Nuvolari, Varzi, and Moll. After the war,  

He founded a company that immortalised the Ferrari  name as a byword for speed, passion, glamour,   and romance on the track and road. Ferrari’s quest  for racing glory came at significant financial and   human cost. Over the course of the decades,  he experienced the loss of many great drivers  

In his cars, among them Alberto Ascari, Eugenio  Castellotti, Peter Collins, Wolfgang von Trips,   and Gilles Villeneuve. Despite a whole range  of safety features introduced in the wake of   three-time champion Ayrton Senna’s fatal crash  at Imola in 1994, Formula One remains a dangerous  

Business. In 2014, Ferrari Academy graduate Jules  Bianchi was fatally injured after crashing his   Marussia F1 car into a recovery vehicle at the  Japanese Grand Prix. Despite the obvious risks,   the thrill and excitement of motorsport embodied  by Enzo Ferrari remains very much alive. 

What do you think of Enzo Ferrari? Was he one  of the most capable engineers and businessmen   of the 20th century who created one of the  most successful motorsport teams in history   and one of the most valuable brands in the  world, or was he a ruthless operator who was  

Happy to sit at home while sending young men  off to risk their lives in competition? Please   let us know in the comment section and in the  meantime, thank you very much for watching.