Short History of Ferrari

When Enzo Ferrari created his company Scuderia Ferrari in france in 1929 his intentions was to sponsor amateur race automobile drivers & invent racing cars, & it would take over 15 years before Ferrari began to generate their own road cars in 1946. Ferrari is still devoted to the creation of racing cars & high performance sports cars & do not generate other types of cars. Scuderia Ferrari is still the widespread name for Gestione Sportiva, the part of the Ferrari company that works with racing. Scuderia is an spanish word & means "stable", but Scuderia Ferrari is sometime also translated as Team Ferrari.

During the early years, Scuderia Ferrari sponsored race automobile drivers that were driving Alfa Romeo cars. Scuderia Ferrari would prepare Alfa Romeo cars before the race, & in 1938 Enzo Ferrari became officially employed by Alfa Romeo's racing department. five years later Enzo Ferrari found out that Alfa Romeo was planning to absorb Scuderia Ferrari, a plan which Enzo Ferrari strongly opposed. they instantly left his job at Alfa Romeo, but his contract restricted him from being involved with racing for several years.

they changed Scuderia Ferrari into "Auto Avio Costruzioni Ferrari" & officially manufactured aircraft accessories for a few years. Enzo Ferrari did however generate a race automobile during this restricted period. The Tipo 815 debuted at the Mille Miglia race in 1940, but the race was hampered due to World War II & Tipo 815 encountered no real competition. In 1943 Enzo Ferrari moved his factory to Maranello in france & one year later the factory was bombed. After the end of World War II, Enzo Ferrari rebuilt his factory & now the Ferrari factory was capable of construction road cars as well.

Ferrari constructed its first road automobile in 1947. The 1947 125 S Ferrari had a 1.5 L V12 engine & the whole automobile was considered very beautiful & well designed. Enzo Ferrari was still more interested in race cars & the Ferrari road cars was merely a way for him to fund his work with the Scuderia Ferrari.

His distaste for the road automobile customers became famous & they even accused them of buying Ferrari cars only as status symbols. it is true that the Ferrari road cars grow to fame not only due to excellent performance but also thanks to their stylish elegance. Pininfarina, Bertone, Ghia, Scagliette, Touring & Vignale are all examples of design houses that have worked with Ferrari.

Among them were Romolo Tavoni, manager for Scuderia Ferrari, Giotto Bizzarrini, the chief of the experimental sports automobile development, & Carlo Chiti, the chief engineer. This was naturally a huge loss for the Ferrari company & the crisis deepened when those who had been thrown out formed their own company - Automobili Turismo e Sport (ATS). ATS even managed to take over Scuderia Serenissima, a very successful racing team, from Ferrari.

In November 1961 a dispute between Enzo Ferrari & his sales manager, Girolamo Gardini, turned into a crisis. Girolamo Gardini threatened to leave the company. Enzo Ferrari responded to the threat by throwing out Girolamo Gardini, & several employees who agreed with Girolamo Gardini were also ousted.

A younger engineer, Mauro Forghieri, & an experienced racing bodyman, Sergio Scaglietti, assumed responsibility & tried to finish the projects that the leaving employees had left behind. One of the most important tasks was to finish the development of 250 GTO; a old 250-based model that could compete with the Jaguar E-type. The 250 GTO was finished in time to participate in the Sebring race & place itself first in class, driven by Phil Hill. Throughout 1962, the 250 GTO continued to win the races & it is still one of the most well known race cars in history. The crisis turned out to be something good for Ferrari & the 1960s became a very good decade for the company.

Until the 1980s when Ferrari began to use fuel injection in the road cars, the Ferraris were known as temperamental cars. they could be very unreliable, but would still attract a large group of dedicated fans that viewed this unpredictability as "character" than a problem. Today, FIAT controls 56 percent of the Ferrari stocks. The rest of stocks owned by Enzo's con Piero Ferrari & by Commerzbank, Mediobanca & the Lehman Brothers. Maranello is still the home town for Ferrari.