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Enzo Ferrari was an Italian car maker, designer, and racing driver who was born in Modena, Italy, on February 18, 1898, and died there on August 14, 1988. In the second half of the 20th century, Ferrari automobiles frequently won international racing competition.
After World War I, Ferrari drove test cars for a small car manufacturer in Milan. In 1920, he started driving racing cars for the Alfa Romeo Company. In 1929, he established a racing stable called Scuderia Ferrari. This team continued to represent Alfa Romeo even after Ferrari himself stopped competing in races in 1932. For Alfa Romeo, the first racing vehicle entirely created by Ferrari was constructed in 1937. Ferrari created Ferrari SpA in 1939, breaking his team’s ties to Alfa Romeo, but it wasn’t until 1946, during World War II, that the company began producing its first race cars, which were quickly renowned for their incredible speed and exquisite craftsmanship. From the 1950s on, Ferrari’s Formula 1 racers and sports cars won numerous Grand Prix events and manufacturers’ championships, at times overwhelming the field. The company’s high-end sports cars developed a similar reputation for speed and deft handling.
Enzo Ferrari sold Fiat SpA a 50% stake in his business in 1969, although he stayed in charge of the corporation as president until 1977 and the Ferrari racing team until his passing.
In This Article...
The Enzo Ferrari narrative
Enzo Ferrari led a demanding life, traveling from Modena to Maranello, Turin, and Milan with the sole purpose of creating race automobiles.
Modena experienced significant snowfall on February 18, 1898. Mr. Alfredo Ferrari had to wait two days to record the birth of his second son, Enzo, because it was so hefty. The family resided in the home/workshop that now serves as the renowned constructor’s museum. There there resided his mother Adalgisa Bisbini and their firstborn, Alfredo.
Enzo Ferrari has had a love of vehicles since he was a little child. In 1908, he attended races on the Bologna circuit with his father and brother. Both won’t make it past World War One. Enzo, however, will. He was quickly removed from the front after a Spanish flu outbreak, and in the immediate postwar period, he left for Turin to seek his fortune.
He had aspirations of working for FIAT, but after having his application denied, he began working as a tester for a small “Torpedo” business. His testing career continued with Costruzioni Meccaniche Nazionali in Milan till it grew into a racing driver’s career. In the incline race from Parma to Poggio di Berceto in 1919, he made his debut. His twenty-year partnership with Alfa Romeo began the next year, first as an official driver and later as the director of the racing division.
The Baracca Counts, the parents of pilot Francesco Baracca, asked him to put their son’s coat of arms—a Prancing Horse—on his automobiles in 1923 after he had won the Savio circuit. Enzo Ferrari received the title of Commander in 1929 as a result of his athletic accomplishments. He established the “Scuderia Ferrari” (Ferrari Racing Team), a sporting organization that permitted its members to compete, which quickly developed into a partnership with Alfa Romeo. The Prancing Horse is to serve as his emblem.
Ferrari, who had recently become a father, ended his racing career permanently in 1932. A few years later, his partnership with Alfa Romeo also came to an end. He was about to embark on a new journey, though: Auto Avio Costruzioni, the forerunner of Ferrari, was established in Modena in 1939 before moving to Maranello in 1943.
The Prancing Horse automobile manufacturer was prepared to produce their ideal automobiles, known as the “reds,” after the unavoidable challenges brought on by the war. Ferrari quickly made its racing debut, winning F1 races as well, and its vehicles quickly came to represent innovation and high-end craftsmanship. Dedicated to his son who passed away too soon, Enzo Ferrari established the “Dino Ferrari” High School in Maranello in 1963. The school is still operational today.
Enzo Ferrari was a quiet, modest guy who earned numerous honorary degrees for his accomplishments, including two in engineering from the University of Bologna and one in physics from the University of Modena. He also received the Columbus Prize and the Hammarskjold Prize for Social Sciences. He participated in the creation of the Galleria Ferrari of Maranello as his final project, but he died before the museum was finished. On August 14, 1988, Enzo Ferrari passed away at the age of 90, one and a half years before the Galleria was opened.
EVOLVE FERRARI
The Ferrari founder is the subject of this article. Enzo Ferrari is the name of the car that bears his name (automobile). Enzo Ferrari is the name of an Italian football player and manager (footballer). See Enzo Ferrari for further uses (disambiguation).
The creator of the Scuderia FerrariGrand Prix racing team and later the Ferrari automotive brand, Enzo Anselmo Giuseppe Maria FerrariCavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI (Italian: [‘entso an’selmo fer’ra:ri]; 20 February 1898 – 14 August 1988) was an Italian racing driver and businessman. His nicknames were “il Commendatore” and “il Drake.” In his later years, he was frequently referred to as “il Grande Vecchio” (the Great Old Man) or “l’Ingegnere” (the Engineer).
How Did Enzo Ferrari Live?
In 1919, Enzo Ferrari started his career in motor racing. Following his retirement from driving in 1931, he joined Alfa Romeo shortly after and oversaw its racing section. The Ferrari brand became well-known after World War II as its drivers won multiple prestigious championships. The early death of his son caused personal sorrow for the company’s founder, and financial problems compelled him to consider mergers with other automakers. Ferrari officially gave up his position as business president in 1977, and he passed away in 1988.
Enzo Ferrari’s genuine tale demonstrates how legends are created.
With the invaluable assistance, breadth of understanding, and artistic ability of Prof. Massimo Grandi
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Enzo Ferrari started a company that would be considered a start-up today in 1920 after deciding that racing would be his livelihood after the Great War.
We are starting out 2021 with the tale of Enzo Ferrari and his different businesses with the help of photos donated by Massimo Grandi. But this will be the real narrative, not the one that most people are familiar with! We will discuss specifics that illuminate how Ferrari was able to forge from nothing a timeless and legendary tale of vision and audacity akin to that of Elon Musk and Steve Jobs that fascinates the entire globe.
The story spans three key phases in Ferrari’s life, and we will be releasing new installments every Monday. In a nutshell, we’ll be examining Ferrari’s early years and his time spent competing, the conception of the Scuderia, and Ferrari the automaker.
The Parma-Poggio di Berceto hill climb was Enzo Ferrari’s first competitive race, which he entered in 1919. He was only 21 years old at the time, and his employer, the automaker CMN, supported him in this endeavor (for which he would drive bare chassis from Turin to Milan, to receive their bodywork). He achieved his first victory at this competition by placing an outstanding fourth!
Enzo, a well-known driver by this point, had the excellent idea to found a club, or Scuderia, in 1932 with the goal of allowing both amateur (i.e., paying) and professional drivers the opportunity to compete. Among the many experts that participated was the well-known Nuvolari. The Scuderia turned out to be a wildly successful and lucrative endeavor.
1940. Following the dissolution of his Scuderia at Alfa Romeo, this was the year when Enzo left ways with the company and started his journey as a vehicle builder. The first vehicle he created was for Auto Avio Costruzioni due to the rules of his “divorce” from Alfa Romeo prohibiting him from using the Ferrari brand name for at least four years (his own firm). The Auto Avio Costruzioni 815 in question made its racing debut in the 1940 Mille Miglia.
The two 815s competing in that race, driven by Lotario RangoniMachiavelli and Alberto Ascari respectively, were both quick but delicate and both had the unfortunate misfortune of breaking down when extremely well positioned. Naturally, the Second World War had already started by then, so everything had to be put on hold. Therefore, it would take some time before Enzo could officially reveal the Ferrari 125. This was the first automobile to bear his name, and the first genuine Ferrari, and it was built in Maranello in 1947.
Every chapter in this tale is based on the wisdom and prodigious talent of a man, whose example may still instruct us on what it takes to succeed, as we shall see…
Enzo Ferrari makes his racing-car driving debut.
Enzo Ferrari, a young Italian auto technician and engineer, competes in his first automobile race—a hill climb—on October 5, 1919, in Parma, Italy. He came in fourth. Ferrari wasn’t a brilliant driver; he only finished first in 13 of the 47 races he competed. Many claim that he cared too much about the sports cars he drove, and as a result, he could never bring himself to wreck an engine just to win a race.
Ferrari gave from racing in the middle of the 1920s to focus on his first love: automobile construction. In 1929, he assumed control of the Alfa Romeo racing division and started building vehicles under his own name. Alfa Romeo sacked Ferrari in 1939 due to their disapproval of his authoritarian managerial style. Following that, he founded his own manufacturing company, although throughout the war years, he focused on making machine tools rather than race cars.
The first authentic Ferraris finally hit the market in 1947. In the same year, Ferrari won his first race as a standalone automaker, the Rome Grand Prix. The Le Mans road race was won by a Ferrari for the first time in 1949, and one of the team’s drivers, Alberto Ascari, won every race he competed in to win the title of world racing champion in 1952.
Ferrari enjoyed its most successful decade during that time period. Year after year, his cars dominated the competition, taking home five Grand Prix titles and eight world championships. Ferrari’s cars were brutal, which is why he won so many races. They were bigger, stronger, and had engines that were significantly more powerful than anyone else’s (in part to make up for their increased weight). Additionally, he insured his success by overrunning races with his vehicles and by employing the most audacious, risk-taking drivers he could find. Unfortunately, this confluence of careless drivers and massive, powerful vehicles was a prescription for tragedy: Between 1955 and 1965, six of Ferrari’s 20 drivers perished in collisions, and on five separate occasions, his cars slammed into spectator groups, killing 50 people in all. (Ferrari was even put on trial for manslaughter in 1957 after one of these horrifying accidents, but he was found not guilty.)
Ferrari was slow to embrace innovations like disc brakes, rear-mounted engines, and fuel-injection systems because he had a tendency to mock technological advancements that he did not invent himself. As a result, his vehicles’ monopoly on races all over the world started to wane. Nevertheless, Ferrari vehicles had won more than 4,000 races by the time of his passing in 1988.