Ferrari - King of Cars 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.