Ferrari History

When car enthusiasts and aficionados think of Ferrari, they think of speed and fierce performance packaged in a stunning-looking body. Images of luxury and dreamy lifestyle may accompany those thoughts. The history of Ferrari goes back to the years after 1945, and starts with Enzo Ferrari - a mechanic at Alfa Romeo. He started as a testing driver for their racing team, and later became responsible for taking care of the technical problems and solving them. However, he then got to manage the Scruderia Alfa Romeo Team, and was very successful at it.

As all good things have an end, Alfa Romeo ended his racing team, but Enzo did not end his racing career; he formed his own team - the Scruderia Ferrari. He continued racing Alfa Romeo cars until the competition with Mercedes Benz and the Auto Union became too much. This is when Alfa Romeo decided to stop building racing cars, in the thirties. This did not stop Enzo once more, who decided to build his own racing car. He created the Avia tipo 815 in 1940 - a Fiat based car that was not very successful. A little failure did not stop Enzo Ferrari, who in 1945 partnered with a friend, Colombo and developed a new engine for racing cars - the V12 Ferrari 60 degrees. This engine was capable of 1500 cc and had two overhead camshafts. The duo introduced it in the Ferrari 125 S as a prototype for evaluation. In 1947 the production of the first Ferrari sportscar was accomplished - the Ferrari tipo 166.

This was the car responsible for the later famous Ferrari cars through history. The 166 had a V12 1995cc engine that was capable of reaching 200 bhp at 7000 rpm's. The style was by Carroseria Touring - a Barchetta style. In the 1949, Luigi Finetti made the Ferrari a winner, by becoming triumphant at the 24-hour race Lemans and the Mille Miglia races. After that, the rest is history as Ferrari continued to win many Grand Prix and sports car races around the world.

From then on, the Colombo engine was redeveloped to perform at more capacity, and new body styles and components were designed as well by some artists like Ghia, Vignale, and Touring. Coupes and convertibles appeared taking the breath out of car enthusiasts. Throughout the years, the body and the engine of the Ferrari models have been evolving and transformed to what today's models look like, but all came from that single 166 chassis that continued to evolved and inspired designers and mechanic geniuses. In this transformation, names like PininFarina and Aurelio Lampredi have much weight.

Throughout the years, the legendary Ferrari has won more than 5,000 races and competitions. However, the creator of the Ferrari always disliked the fact that the car became a symbol for rich boy toys, as he always envisioned a racing machine. As the demand for the Ferrari increased, he sold fifty percent of share capital to Fiat; however, Ferrari has always kept its own brand and presence in the market. Enzo Ferrari died in 1988, in Modena. Today, his son Piero Ferrari owns only a small percentage of the company and other shareholders along with Fiat (biggest owner) own the rest.