Ferrari is an Italian company which has produced sports cars since 1947, but traces its roots back to 1929 when Enzo Ferrari formed the Scuderia Ferrari racing team.
In January 2016, Ferrari officially split off from its former parent company Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.
Early history
1929–1937: Scuderia Ferrari
Enzo Ferrari decided to pursue racing in 1908, at the age of ten: to this end, he eventually began a career as a racing driver in 1919. During the 1920s he worked for Alfa Romeo, both as a driver in various local races and as an employee in its Milan sales depot. In 1929, though, he broke from this line of work to found and manage his own racing team, which he named Scuderia Ferrari. Conceived as an outfit for gentleman drivers and other amateurs, the team was founded through a million-lira loan from a local bank, with additional backing from the wealthy amateur racer Mario Tadini, Augusto and Alfredo Caniato — two brothers in the textile industry — and the tyre company Pirelli. It would be based out of Modena, Enzo's hometown.
Enzo quickly set about negotiating with Giorgio Rimini, Alfa Romeo's commercial director, and managed to secure a partnership between their respective companies. The intended arrangement was simple: Alfa Romeo would outfit their factory team, Alfa Corse, with its latest, most sophisticated cars, while Ferrari's () and the first use of the Prancing Horse logo was at the 1932 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps.
1938–1945: Auto Avio Costruzioni
In their early years, Scuderia Ferrari enjoyed considerable independence from Alfa Romeo, owing both to their loose partnership and the physical distance between Modena and Alfa Romeo's facilities in Milan. In 1937, though, Alfa Romeo began to reconsider this inefficient state of affairs, and at the end of the year they purchased 80% of Scuderia Ferrari's shares, absorbing it into the company. Enzo remained the team's manager until a restructuring in 1939, in which he was laid off. After this, he used his capital — sourced from his savings, a hefty settlement, and the sale of his team two years prior — to start his own automotive company, Auto Avio Costruzioni. Ferrari's new company, the direct predecessor of the contemporary Ferrari S.p.A., could not be branded by his surname for another four years due to a noncompete agreement he had reached with Alfa Romeo. Though he could not build any cars, Enzo continued to conceptualise new racing car designs throughout the war.
1946–1959: The beginning
thumb|right|Enzo and [[Alfredo Ferrari, along with a pair of engineers, inspecting what is likely an early Colombo V12.]]
In all, World War II was good for Ferrari, as the associated military contracts allowed the company to raise significant capital for postwar automotive production. It would continue to produce grinding machines, its most lucrative wartime contract, into the late 1940s in order to finance its racing operations. He was also simply passionate about V12 engines: he recalled thinking about the layout as early as 1925,
Enzo also met with Luigi Chinetti that year, who convinced him of the potential value of selling his cars in the United States. Chinetti, who had been selling European racing cars since the 1920s, believed that the United States' dynamic economy could sustain Ferrari's racing aspirations far better than war-torn Europe. Enzo concurred, and on 24 December 1946 he made Chinetti his official North American importer. Ferrari vehicles were shipped to the United States, which was to become one of the automaker's primary markets, as early as 1949.
125 S: the first Ferrari
thumb|right|The Ferrari 125 S, the first Ferrari sports car, at its debut race in [[Piacenza.]]
The first Ferrari sports car, as well as the first car to use Colombo's new engine, was the 1947 125 S. Purpose-built for sports car racing, it achieved the company's first victory at the 1947 Grand Prix of Rome, where it was driven by Franco Cortese. Of the ten races the car entered, it won six, placed second in one, and retired from three. Cortese remarked that compared to his competition, the 125 S "was a more modern machine, indeed exceptional for those days."
The 125 S was developed alongside the 125 F1, first raced for the 1948 Grand Prix season. The open-wheel racer's engine was identical to the 125 S's except that, in keeping with regulations, it was fitted with a single-stage supercharger. It was first raced at the 1948 Italian Grand Prix, where its encouraging performance convinced Enzo to continue the company's costly Grand Prix racing programme.
In the earliest years of Ferrari's production, the difference between its racing and road models was very small; one author claims that it is so scant as to be "strictly a matter of interpretation," and that even the more well-appointed cars were impractical to drive on the road. The 166 Inter, the company's first grand tourer, was a step away from the earlier, dual-purpose sports cars exemplified by the 159 S and 166 S. The nickname , meaning calls attention to the chassis's strengthening ribs, which grant the car a boat-like shape; In 2005,
Motor Trend Classic placed the 166 MM barchetta sixth in their list of the ten "greatest Ferraris of all time."
The America series of grand touring cars began production in 1950, starting with the 340 America racing model. Enzo intended for the new car to compete against racers with high-displacement American engines: to this end, it was fitted with a 4.1-litre iteration of the company's new Lampredi engine, originally designed for Formula One. A road variant, the 342 America, was produced just one year later; the new car, intended for elite customers with negligible interest in racing, featured new bodywork and a detuned engine.
thumb|right|A [[Carrozzeria Vignale|Vignale-bodied 340 America Spyder at the factory in Maranello.]]
By 1953, Enzo, having grown tired of small-scale sales, hoped to expand and standardise the production of his road cars. The 250 series was sold in an expansive array of body styles, including the US-oriented California Spyder, a tighter-handling short wheelbase version, and convertible iterations of the coupé body style.
Early racing success
The successful sale of these cars hinged on Ferrari's ability to win races, and Ferrari won many. Within just a few months, Ferrari had scored so many victories that "it seemed like it had always been involved in racing." In 1952 Ferrari won its first Formula One season, filling the vacuum left by Alfa Romeo's departure from the series, and by 1957, just ten years after beginning to race, Ferrari had taken home three Formula One World Championships, three World Sportscar Championships, seven victories in the Mille Miglia, and two victories at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. and later, between the 1952 and 1953 Belgian Grands Prix, Alberto Ascari placed first in every single Formula One race. Ascari's winning ratio — just over 40 percent — is the second highest in Formula One history.
thumb|left|Ascari and Villoresi at the [[1952 Italian Grand Prix, both driving Ferrari Tipo 500s.]]
One of the more important races for the company's future was the 1951 Carrera Panamericana, a grueling transcontinental endurance race straddling Mexico's new highway system. Ferrari's entries, two 212 Inters, achieved a 1–2 finish with the help of four drivers: Piero Taruffi and Luigi Chinetti finished first in a Vignale 212 Inter coupé, while Alberto Ascari and Luigi Villoresi placed second in a similar car. This was a goal which race driver Luigi Chinetti had been working towards for half a decade: an immigrant to the United States, he had been Ferrari's official North American agent since 1946. Chinetti established the first US Ferrari dealership, Luigi Chinetti Motors, in 1947; he imported his first Ferrari for US sale in 1949, and managed other vehicle sales perhaps as early as 1948.
Later in the 1950s, Chinetti would also found the North American Racing Team (NART). NART operated as a privateer team, independent from Ferrari, and grew out of driver arrangements Chinetti had been managing since 1951.
Genesis of Dino
Enzo's son, Alfredo "Dino" Ferrari, worked for a short but pivotal period for the company. Before dying of Duchenne muscular dystrophy at the age of 24, Alfredo helped design the 750 Monza and a new Formula Two-ready V6 engine. After Alfredo died, Vittorio Jano would ultimately finish his engine design, resulting in the Dino engine, bearing his name in his honour. Also named after Alfredo was the new Dino marque: first applied in 1957, two years after Alfredo's death, to the Dino 156 F2 open-wheel car, in the 1960s the name would come to be applied to a line of lower-priced Ferraris produced in cooperation with Fiat.
Driver and bystander deaths
thumb|right|upright=0.8|[[The Kiss of Death (1957)|The Kiss of Death, a photograph taken moments before Portago's passing, documents him exchanging a kiss with the actress Linda Christian.]]
Some things surrounding Ferrari's racing program were less than savoury, however: in the second half of the 1950s, Scuderia Ferrari would witness a string of fatal crashes. Alberto Ascari was killed behind the wheel of a Ferrari in 1955, as were Eugenio Castellotti, Alfonso de Portago, Luigi Musso, Peter Collins, and Wolfgang von Trips in following years. The public was especially roused by Portago's death at the 1957 Mille Miglia, which accompanied a disaster that killed nine spectators, five of them children. Protestors surrounded Ferrari's factory, and Enzo was called to stand trial for manslaughter; the court soon acquitted him, as the race's high spectator count and lack of crowd control made it highly unsafe. When faced with these accidents, Enzo appeared more interested in his cars than in the people they had killed, and his team took to salvaging spare parts from their remains. who ate his own children in order to retain his power.
Coachbuilding partnerships
Early in its history, Ferrari had no strong preference for any coachbuilder: after a chassis was finished in Maranello, it would be sent, per the buyer's request, to one of many local firms. The Ferraris of the 1940s and 1950s had bodies fabricated by the likes of Ghia, Bertone, Vignale, Touring, and Boano. Two vehicles that were mechanically identical, but bodied by different coachbuilders, could look strikingly dissimilar. which began in 1951, solved these issues, and allowed Ferrari to produce its cars at a higher volume.
The meeting that led to this partnership almost never happened. Battista Farina and Enzo Ferrari were equally headstrong, and neither of them wanted to leave their headquarters. Sergio, Battista's son, intervened and set up a meeting at a restaurant in Tortona, halfway between Maranello and Pinin Farina's headquarters in Turin. Here the two were able to strike a deal, Battista claiming in his autobiography that "one of us was looking for a beautiful, famous woman to dress and the other a world-class couturier to deck her out." The automotive press of the time predicted that the partnership would fall through, on account of the two men's strong personalities; against these assertions, the venture turned out successful, and Pininfarina came to design over 200 Ferrari models over the course of six decades.
thumb|right|A [[Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa|250 Testa Rossa (right), driven by Phil Hill at the 1958 12 Hours of Sebring. This Scaglietti-bodied car features distinctive "pontoon fenders."]]
Equally important was Ferrari's relationship with Scaglietti. Founded as a repair shop, it was located just across the street from Ferrari's facilities in Modena. According to Sergio Scaglietti, the firm's founder, he first caught Ferrari's attention after he rebuilt a Ferrari owner's wrecked car; as he worked, he made small changes to the car's bodywork, hoping to improve its aerodynamics. Enzo Ferrari was so impressed with Scaglietti's work that just days later, he commissioned him to build bodies for the 500 Mondial. Sergio's shop is said to have hammered its bodies on the fly, without assistance from drawings. While Pininfarina specialised in passenger car design, Scaglietti primarily constructed racing bodies: several Ferraris, including the 250 California Spyder, 250 GTO, and 250 Tour de France, were designed by Pininfarina and then built by Scaglietti.
1960–1973: Upheavals
thumb|right|Unlike prior Ferraris, the [[Ferrari 156 F1|156 F1 had its engine behind the driver.]]
In 1960, Ferrari was restructured as a public company, Ferrari Società Esercizio Fabbriche Automobili e Corse S.p.A. By this point it had established itself as a premier manufacturer of high-performance cars. Enzo Ferrari had developed a reputation as a craftsman, innovator, and motor racing icon, and his company invested nearly all of its profits from car sales into its racing programmes. Its car designs had also become more adventurous: the Dino-powered 156 F1 and 246 SP were the company's first formula car and sports prototype, respectively, to feature a mid-engine design. The 156 F1, piloted by champion driver Phil Hill, gave Ferrari both titles of the 1961 Formula One season, and the 246 SP took two victories at the 1961 and 1962 Targa Florio. The mid-engine layout, which other racing teams had adopted in years prior, improved the cars' handling and traction over their front-engined predecessors.
thumb|right|upright=0.9|Five [[Ferrari 250 GTO|250 GTOs at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance. The 250 GTO is one of the world's most expensive cars.]]
The front-engined 250 GTO, though more conservative, was also a car to be reckoned with. Meant to do battle against cars like the Jaguar E-Type, between 1962 and 1964 it took several podium finishes and class wins, and won the World Sportscar Championship's 2000cc class for three consecutive years. The 250 GTO is currently one of the world's most valuable cars, owing to a combination of its racing provenance, driving experience, and aesthetics. In 2017 an example sold for US$44,000,000, and by 2019 the four most expensive car sales in history, whether privately or at auction, had all been for 250 GTOs.
The "palace revolt"
One of the first challenges faced in the new decade occurred in October 1961. At the time, Enzo had been allowing his wife, Laura, a bigger power in the company's day-to-day operations. Eight high-ranking employees, including chief engineers Carlo Chiti and Giotto Bizzarrini and sporting director Romolo Tavoni, were concerned about her interference in their duties. After staging a walkout and hiring a lawyer to write on their behalf, the eight were personally terminated from Ferrari by Enzo, who accused them of attempting to start their own company. The event is known by several evocative names including "great walkout," "palace revolt," and "Ferrari's Night of the Long Knives."
thumb|left|The peculiarly shaped [[Ferrari 250 GT SWB Breadvan|250 GT SWB Breadvan was one of the results of the employee turnover.]]
The event represented a considerable loss of talent from Ferrari. The company was able to compensate through leveraging new hires and its preexisting employees. After Chiti's departure a young Mauro Forghieri became Ferrari's new chief racing engineer, a position wherein he assisted in the development of several new racing vehicles, including the Ferrari P prototype series and the innovative 312 F1 formula car, Ferrari's first to feature a rear wing.
Forghieri would also cap off the development of the Bizzarrini-designed 250 GTO, and create the first Ferrari flat-12 engine.
Eugenio Dragoni became the new F1 team director, a position he would hold until 1966. While Tavoni had been popular with his drivers, Dragoni was not, and personal problems between him, Phil Hill, and John Surtees would cause the two to leave the team in 1962 and 1966, respectively.
The men who were ousted from Ferrari took their skills elsewhere, assisting both well-established companies and smaller, start-up manufacturers. Bizzarrini and Chiti would first prove Enzo right by founding their own automotive company, Automobili Turismo e Sport (ATS). Before the company folded in 1964, the two had produced the ATS 2500 GT — the second mid-engined road car in history and the first from Italy — as well as the "Breadvan," a custom Ferrari 250 GT made for Giovanni Volpi, one of ATS's founders and key investors.
Following this, the two engineers went their separate ways: Chiti would find a home at Alfa Romeo, helping create the Tipo 33 Stradale during his tenure there, while Bizzarrini focused on his own company, through which he designed the Lamborghini V12 engine and Iso Grifo, among other projects. Bizzarrini's company would ultimately fold in 1968.
By 21 May, Frey's delegation had come up with a final contract. Ford was to buy 90% of Ferrari, after which there would be two corporate entities: "Ford–Ferrari," which would manufacture road cars, and "Ferrari–Ford," a more or less independent racing team. Things appeared to be going well until Enzo found a clause, requiring the racing team to request its funds from Ford, that he felt threatened his autonomy. He then asked about his right to field cars as he pleased: after Frey responded negatively, Enzo is said to have insulted and cursed the delegation out of the room. On 22 May, just one day later, a newswire release indicated that negotiations between the two companies had been suspended. In light of the news, Henry Ford II resolved to prove Ford's racing abilities by beating Ferrari at Le Mans, and a new engineering team was formed specifically to design the car that could do the job.
Racing rivalry
In June 1963, shortly after Ferrari negotiations fell through, Ford began work on a sports prototype that would be ready to race by the 1964 24 Hours of Le Mans. The resulting car, the Ford GT40, was unreliable and failed to finish the race. Ferrari's prototypes took first through third overall, with first place going to the 275 P driven by Nino Vaccarella and Jean Guichet.
An updated version of Ford's car, the GT40 Mk II, was ready in time for the 1965 24 Hours of Le Mans. Four original GT40s and two Mk IIs, spread between Ford, Shelby, and other teams, were fielded: none of them finished the race.
The climax of the Ferrari–Ford rivalry was the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans, where eight of Ford's Mk IIs raced against two Ferrari 330 P3s. Ford's cars placed first through third in the race, first and second crossing at the same time in a photo finish. First place was granted to Chris Amon and Bruce McLaren, who started further back on the starting grid than their teammates, Ken Miles and Denis Hulme. A single Ferrari finished the race: a 275 GTB driven by Roy Pike and Piers Courage, which took home a GT class victory.
Racing activity after 1966
Following Ford's victory in 1966, Ferrari began to experience significant setbacks. One of these was the result of a rules change by the FIA which rendered Ferrari's newest prototype designs, the 412 P and 330 P4, ineligible for the 1968 World Sportscar Championship. As a result, Ferrari declined to participate in any sports car events that year, with the notable exception of Can-Am. The official reason given for the abstention was that it was a boycott, staged by Enzo Ferrari as a protest against the rules change, though it may also have been influenced by budgetary issues and poor performance in Formula One. The new rules did not affect cars like the Ford GT40 and Lola T70, which were popular among privateers and able to meet the prerequisite 50 units produced, and Ford ultimately went on to win the championship.
Though Ford's cars won at Le Mans through 1969, and took the championship as a whole in 1968, Ferrari's absence that year effectively ended its rivalry with the American automaker early. These teams, derisively called () by Enzo Ferrari, were free from the high costs associated with powertrain development; they instead focused their resources on chassis development and aerodynamics. It would take until 1975 for Ferrari to win another F1 championship. The company also saw significant competition with Porsche in 1970 and 1971, as the Ferrari 512 proved to be one of the only cars able to keep up with the speedy, light, and reliable Porsche 917; though Porsche's wealth and more robust development allowed it to maintain an edge, Ferrari still managed several victories.
Ferrari vehicles of the 1960s
In the first half the 1960s, Ferrari retained several models that were direct continuations of older cars. The 250 range culminated in the GT/E, which was the company's first 2+2, and the GT Lusso, the final 250 car — it would be produced until 1964. The America range switched from the Lampredi engine to the Colombo beginning in 1960, bringing it in line with Ferrari's other offerings, and ended by 1966. The final car in the America lineage was the 500 Superfast, which housed the company's largest and most powerful engine to date.
Compared to the Dino, the 365 GTB/4 took a more conservative approach to performance. Commonly called the "Daytona", the GTB/4 was based largely on its predecessor, the front-engined 275 GTB, and was the final flagship Ferrari to feature a front-engine design. Ferrari's engineers gave the car several high-performance features, including all-independent suspension, four-wheel disc brakes, and a rear transaxle, inherited from the 275 GTB, which aided the car's weight distribution; the engine, a "Tipo 251" iteration of the Colombo, was rated at 352 bhp on European models. Breaking with Ferrari's previous design conventions, the car was also given angular, aerodynamic bodywork.
Fiat partnership and buyout
Ferrari first worked with Fiat in 1965, when new homologation regulations within Formula Two required Ferrari to produce at least 500 examples of its F2 engine, the Dino V6, which was more than its factory was capable of. Ferrari needed a partner to produce its engine in volume, a position which Fiat was interested in. Between 1966 and 1973, Fiat produced over 7,000 examples of the engine for its Fiat Dino sports car. Following the success of this collaboration, the two companies began to discuss a potential takeover by Fiat.
thumb|right|The [[Fiat Dino was a collaborative effort between Fiat and Ferrari.]]
As Ferrari struggled with sales and production in the late 1960s, it reluctantly turned to Fiat for financial assistance, and the two would complete an acquisition deal in June of 1969. Fiat S.p.A. received 50% of the company's shares upon its completion, with Ferrari keeping the other 50%. The 50–50 split in shares reflected a projected split in responsibilities, where Fiat would take charge of road car development and manufacturing, while Enzo would retain complete control over racing operations.
The buyout had an immediate positive effect on Ferrari's sales — between 1969 and 1972, they increased exponentially — but not on its other financial metrics: soon after the acquisition, Ferrari's operating revenue and gross operating income both fell drastically.
While increased Fiat influence was quickly felt in the development, production and marketing of road cars, the racing department initially remained little-touched by Fiat's new status within the company as chief investor. By 1986, Ferrari had produced a one-off car for Fiat's chairman, Gianni Agnelli: in celebration of 20 years at the head of Fiat, Agnelli commissioned the Testarossa Spider, which featured many customisations tailored specifically for him.
In the United States, new safety and emissions regulations threatened to prevent Ferrari from selling its cars there. Some US-market Ferraris, like the 308 GTB, featured neutered power compared to their international counterparts, Many Berlinetta Boxers arrived unofficially via grey market importers; after making landfall in the United States, these cars were "federalized"—given aftermarket emissions and safety equipment—in order to meet American roadworthiness standards. Similar issues occurred in Ferrari's native country of Italy, where a new engine tax induced by the 1973 oil crisis led the company to debore its V8 engine; the result was the 208 GT4, which possessed the lowest displacement V8 ever produced for a road car.
A new direction for road cars
thumb|Thanks to its distinctive design and appearances in popular media, the [[Ferrari Testarossa|Testarossa is one of the most well-known cars of the 1980s.]]
Abandoning many of its earlier design customs, the 1970s saw Ferrari adopt new features across much of its model lineup.
The Berlinetta Boxer, first produced in 1973, was the company's first flagship car to sport a mid-engined design. It also sported a new flat-12 engine, the Tipo F102A, and was the first Ferrari road car to feature such an engine. It was produced, with revisions along the way, until 1984, when it was replaced by the Testarossa.
The Testarossa was a natural evolution of the Boxer's design, except bigger, faster—at , it was then the world's fastest production car—and more contemporary. In spite of its large size and polarising design, with its "cheese grater" intake strakes singled out for ridicule, the car sold exceedingly well. Thanks to appearances in media like the television series Miami Vice and the video game Out Run, the Testarossa would later become iconic of 1980s culture as a whole.
The Dino 308 GT4, the first road Ferrari to use a V8 engine, was launched in 1973. It was also Ferrari's first mid-engined 2+2, the first mass-produced