Ferrari history | Ferrari car history | Enzo Ferrari passion for speed
Ferrari Short Bio
* Ferrari is a popular Italian sports car manufacturer finer on September 13th 1939 in Modena Italy.
* It was founded by Enzo Ferrari.
* Its headquarters are in Amsterdam Netherlands and also in Maranello Italy.
* It’s keeping its key people were John Elkin (chairman) and Piero Ferrari (Vice chairman).
* As of 2016, there are 3,115 employees.
Enzo Ferrari 1898
It was this world into which Enzo Ferrari was born on February 18th 1898. His family home was in the Po Valley in northern Italy a land criss-crossed by hundred-year-old family farms and graceful vineyards still famous for its Lambrusco wines and balsamic vinegars. Enzo’s father Alfredo Ferrari was a structural metal contractor with his own business, his mother LG’s was a typical italian homemaker who doted on both Enzo and his brother Dino who was two years older, his early family background was very happy.
The Ferrari home and business was on the outskirts of an ancient Roman city called Modena. The Ferraris lived upstairs in a small apartment Alfredo’s workshop was downstairs where he sometimes employed as many as 20 workers. Alfredo intended for his sons to take over his business one day but young Enzo wanted none of instead, he toyed with the idea of being a journalist or even an opera singer.
1908
In 1908 when Enzo was 10 years old his father Alfredo took both his sons to their first automobile race. Enzo Ferrari discovered the world of automobiles and speed. He saw the gratefully seen at sorrow the great 1907 Grand Prix winner for Fiat driving a Fiat at speed and he saw Vincenzo Lancia driving a fierce at speed and he was absolutely entranced and that to him was absolutely the epitome of bravura that was the life for a proper man. Alfredo Ferrari had other plans for his boys. He sent them to a mechanical engineering trade school to prepare them to take over the family business.
1914
By the summer of 1914 when Enzo was 16 years old Italy was quickly being drawn into the first world war. The following year his brother Dino enlisted in the Italian Army. He was sent to the front as an ambulance driver.
1916
Then in 1916 Enzo’s father died suddenly of pneumonia. Without Alfredo the once prosperous business soon collapsed. Then word came from the front that his brother Dino was dead of typhoid fever, within months Enzo Ferraris once predictable life seemed to be spinning out of control.
1917
Finally in 1917 he was drafted into the Army. When he appeared for duty he announced to his superiors that he was a skilled auto mechanic, umimpressed.
1918
Discharged from the Army in 1918 at the age of 20. Ferrari was a broken young man physically, mentally and emotionally. The following year the great War came to an end but Italy was in an economic freefall. In the chaos and disillusionment that followed Benito Mussolini and his Blackshirt at fascista took over. Enzo ferrari seemed disinterested in the politics of his country. His only concern was to regain the strength, he lost during his illness and then somehow get on with his life. He soon managed to get a letter of recommendation from the colonel of his regiment with that in hand he headed for Turin the center of the Italian car industry. When Enzo arrived he immediately applied for work at one of Torrens most prominent companies Fiat. The automobile manufacturing giant owned by the wealthy oniony family. Ferrari proudly presented his letter but to the Fiat engineer who spoke with him the letter meant nothing. Ferrari was told that the city was awash in unemployed War veterans there was no work. Enzo Ferrari was not a man who suffered rejection easily. His grief and shame over Fiats refusal to hire him slowly turned to rage. Far-fetched as it seems. Ferrari swore a vendetta against Fiat and the onion. Somehow he would find a way to make them pay.
At the end of the Great War Enzo Ferrari surfaced in Turin Italy ready to transform himself from a simple country boy into a racecar driver and maybe even a star. He had survived a life-threatening illness and had suffered rejection from the leading car manufacturer in the region. He simply refused to give up. The battleground Ferrari had
chosen was the world of fast cars. Up to now the automobiles used for racing were simply modified passenger cars. The new technology used to power airplanes tanks and trucks during the war was being tested on specially engineered racecars and it was all happening in touring. Sivaji managed to get Enzo a job at one of the small Italian automakers CMN that was located in Milan some 100 miles east of turin. It was here Ferrari bought his first car a used Alfa Romeo that could race. After seeing both Sivaji and Ferrari drive in several local races. Alfa’s team manager gave them a chance to drive race cars for Alfa Romeos them. Ferrari needed to find other ways to increase his income and his prestige. He convinced Alfa Romeo to use him as a sales agent trading and selling their cars to private customers and delivering them personally. It was during this time that he met Laura domenica Carillo, mysterious 21 year old woman who haunted the cafe’s and Pretorius frequented by the Turin Racing crowd. Laura’s life before Enzo Ferrari is a mystery. It is known that she and Ferrari traveled the racing circuit as a couple and may have even lived together for several years.
1923
In 1923 they married in a small Catholic ceremony. Within months of his marriage Enzo returned to living the highlife running around with the race car groupies of the day. According to his old friends Ferrari was an incorrigible ladies man. Enzo and his wife Laura did battle from the start their lives were further complicated when Enzo’s mother lg’s came to live with them. Lg’s and Laura despised each other the two women fought openly with Enzo often in the middle playing the referee. Enzo escaped his trouble home life by throwing himself into work. Alfa Romeo planned
to debut a race car called the p1 at the European Grand Prix in Monza. Enzo managed convinced Luigi bot see one of the best engine technicians on the racing circuit to leave Fiat and come to work with him on the car. Ferrari, Peugeot seviche, Luigi bot C and the Alfa racing team arrived just one day early for the European Grand Prix at Monza. It was a fast practice run, the Boche was behind the wheel. He maneuvered the p1 around a sharp curve. It’s fun out, Sivaji was killed. Ferrari was shaken by the death of his friend. The man who had helped him to gain entrance into the world of Motorsports and he knew that the p1 had somehow failed and it needed to be re-engineered. Bot C suggestion Ferrari recruited another Fiat worker to join him at Alfa Romeo, Vittorio Yano an engineer reputed to be a mechanical genius. Together, Yano bot C and Ferrari went to work to redesign the p1. Within months under relentless pressure from Ferrari Yano and bot C re-engineered the Alfa Romeo p1, into what they called the p2. At a competition in Cremona and with star driver Antonio Escada behind the wheel. The p2 clocked 121 miles per| set a lap record and won the race. Ferraris victory was the start of a winning streak that pushed Fiat and the Onion’s out of auto racing for good. Enzo Ferrari a country boy from the Po Valley had made good on his vendetta against one of the most prosperous companies in Italy at least for the time being but winning was only the first step. Now Ferrari had to fine a way to finance it with the help of some rich investors he offered to strike a deal with Alfa Romeo to take over their car racing business.
1929
On December 1st 1929 he opened the doors and what he called the Scuderia Ferrari. In English the Ferrari stable a stable of the best racing drivers and Alfa Romeo cars that would be re-engineered to Enzo Ferraris specifications. But at home his family life continued to disintegrate.
1932
In 1932 ten years into their marriage Laura gave birth to a son. They named him Dino, according to Ferraris memoirs Dino was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy an illness that would slowly destroy his central nervous system.
1939
By 1939 there was world war in Europe, Mussolini had Italy in a stranglehold. A new Alfa Romeo executive severed the relationship with Enzo Ferraris Scuderia in order to survive Ferrari would collaborate with the Italian fascist party.
1940
It was 1940 and World War two was spreading it’s destruction all across Europe. The Italian economy was floundering, auto racing was suspended indefinitely. The Scuderia Ferrari factory sat idle. The survive financially Enzo transform the old scuderia ferrari into a factory that produced equipment for the fascist italian government’s war of. There are conflicting stories about what he manufactured, some say it was power grinding machines for all bearings that may have been used in the production of war material, others insist he made components for a line of machine guns used by the Italian army. In order to protect his factory from Allied bombers. The government ordered Ferrari to move it from Madonna to safer grounds. He chose Marinella a town ten miles away. On a return trip to medina Enzo met Lina Larney. At that time she was young. At 46 Enzo Ferrari fell in love with Lina lardy. Early the next year Enzo received the news that Lina was pregnant she delivered a healthy baby boy nine months later and named him Piero. Mother and son were sequestered in Lina’s small hometown of Castle vetro near Ferraris Maranello Factory. While in Modena Laura and Enzo celebrated their son Dino’s thirteenth birthday. The boys health continued to deteriorate.
After the war ended the Marshall Plan began to infuse millions of Yankee dollars into the suffering Italian economy. The weary Italian public was ready for automobile racing to resume so was Enzo Ferrari he began developing new race cars.
1947
In 1947 Ferrari produced a v12 1.5 liter racer called the tipo 125. By Italian standards the engine was enormous. He loved engines and as far as he was concerned the engine was the be-all and end-all of the racing car or the road car. On May 11th 1947 the tipo 125 the first automobile to carry the name Ferrari competed at Pia chenza a smaller less important competition. Enzo chose this race because he wanted to see what his car could do. Spectators lined the streets to get a look at Ferraris new machine the Italian sporting press was on hand even a few curious members of the Alfa Romeo design staff were there. Incredibly Enzo Ferrari failed to appear in fact from that day forward he would never attend an auto race in which a Ferrari competed. It added to the public image to the public or to the charisma you know the Spyder sitting in the center of ther web. During that first race at Pia chenza with only three laps to go and the T/125 Ferrari in the lead. The fuel pump broke and the car coasted to a stop far short of the finish line. Enzo took the loss in stride he called his car a promising failure. Although he didn’t know it then the tipo 125 marked the birth of the mythic Ferrari car culture and Empire. Enzo began assembling some of Europe’s most brilliant technicians and most celebrated drivers. You would develop some of the fastest racing cars the world had ever seen. A stable of racecar drivers would drive these automobiles in competition after competition and win again and again. Competing on the international racing circuit cost as much as a million dollars a year. Ferrari had to find a way to increase his cash flow.
1940
In the late 1940s a former Ferrari race driver named Luigi Chinetti. Convinced Ferrari to give him the exclusive rights to sell a line of expensive Ferrari Road cars in America. They would be equipped with engines and chassis he’s adapted for public road use ironically. Ferrari had no interest in the road cars at all. They were simply a means to finance his car racing business. Outside of the business Ferrari maintain two households, some 20 miles apart some nights he had supper with laura and dino at the family home in Modena. Other nights he spent with Lena and Piero in Castle vetro. Ten years passed as Ferrari lived this double life.
1956
Then on june 30th 1956 when Dino Ferrari was 24 years old he died at home in Modena. Ferrari tried to control his emotions for the rest of his life he visited Dino’s grave every morning before work. Enzo honored the memory of his son with the Dino Ferrari a car the young man helped to design from that day on all of the v6 and some eight cyllinder Ferraris would bear the name Dino. It is also believed that it was during this time that Ferraris wife Laura whose only child was now dead discovered Enzo’s secret life with his mistress and their 11 year old son. If Flora’s discovery had an impact on her husband Enzo no one knew nothing about his behavior. Betrayed Ferraris true feelings. Within a year of Dino’s death the racing business that Ferrari loved so passionately would slowly begin to unravel. There would be deadly accidents on the track he would be charged with manslaughter charges that threatened to bury a legend. The death of Enzo Ferrari son sent him into an emotional tailspin. He immersed himself
in his work at his office and in his factory with one singular purpose to build even faster cars.
1957
The year was 1957, the race was the Mille Miglia a wildly popular and horribly dangerous 1000 mile open road event. Five Ferrari automobiles were among the 293 entries. He pulled together a superstar team including von portago who was called in as a last-minute replacement. Ten million spectators lined the route that ran through hairpin turns and narrow village streets. Thousands of police and army regulars would not be enough to keep them out of harm’s way. The feverd environment for this event was completely insane and the Italians loved it. Portago told a friend he didn’t want to drive in the Mille Miglia that he felt it was too dangerous that no driver could hope to know every turn every possible road condition but at 5:30 1 in the morning when it was his turn to take off. Portago join the treacherous 1000 mile battle driving the most powerful car in Ferrari stable. The 4.1 liter tipo 335. Observers report that Porto goes Ferrari was rocketing at full throttle. When he suddenly lost control become it spun end-over-end into a ditch. Then over the first row of spectators and into a pole. The impact sent shreds of steel screaming into bystanders. Five children portago and his navigator and ten other adults were dead dozens were injured. The headlines shouted at the public from the front pages of the Italian press demanding an end to the Mille Miglia. It took four years of court appearances and appeals for the manslaughter charge to be dropped. Only to be followed by another calamity on the track in 1961 during the Italian Grand Prix. Enzo Ferrari was 63 years old. There was a growing press corps to contend with. There was the expense of defending himself in another drawn-out court case and there was the relentless spiraling cost of developing race cars with all of this Ferraris were still winning on the track, but even that was about to change. It was the Ford Motor Company which after being turned down in a generous bid to buy Ferraris company. Decided to beat him on the racetrack.
1964
By 1964 at the European Grand Prix in Monza. The Ford team was closing him. Ferraris began to lose races and it was costing him well over a million dollars a year to finance his racing business. Even though Luigi Chinetti had made Ferrari passenger cars a legend in America and the cars were selling for as much as fifteen thousand dollars apiece.
1967
By 1967 Ferraris company was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. With no other resources at his disposal Ferrari
had only one choice to approach his old rivals the onion family for financil assistance. The an jelly’s reportedly paid 11 million dollars for Ferraris company. They allowed Ferrari to stay in charge of the racing arm of the company while Fiat took over the manufacturer of road cars. They would be built on a production line. It marked the end of the custom handmade Ferrari road cars that had graced highways all over the world.
1969
The deal was officially announced to the Italian public on june 21st 1969. It was the end of an era for Enzo Ferrari, at long last he was free to focus his attention solely on winning races but Enzo Ferrari had unfinished business with his mistress and her growing family. In 1969 Enzo Ferrari was 71 years old and still actively in charge of the Ferrari racing program. His mother analgesia had died. His only son Piero was now in his mid-20s in married. He came to work at the Scuderia Ferrari to learn his father’s business. It was more than Ferraris aging wife could tolerate. By then Enzo Ferrari was beginning to enjoy his new young family. Piero and his wife Floriana had an infant daughter Antonella, Enzo Ferraris only grandchild. Ferrari became a doting grandfather.
1978
Nine years later in 1978 when Enzo was 80 Laura Ferrari died. They had been married for 55 years. Enzo soon brought his devoted mistress Lina to live with him in his house in Modena. Piero and his family followed in his final years Ferrari began to enjoy what most would consider a normal family life. Even at the age of 80 Enzo Ferrari refused to retire. His son Pierrot was made general manager of the Ferrari racing team in the mid 80s. During losing streaks the two Ferraris often fought over new engineering strategies. Ferrari spent time recounting the glory days of racing with his old cronies. In the last year of his life Ferrari was plagued with painful kidney problems. When the Pope made the trip to Maranello to pay his respects an extraordinary event. Ferrari was too ill to meet him in person.
1988
By july of 1988 Enzo Ferrari was slowly slipping away. He remained bedridden in his home in Modena attended by Piero and Floriana. On August 14th 1988 Enzo Ferrari died quietly in his bed with his family surrounding him he was 90 years old. Ferraris body was laid to rest in a crypt inside his family tomb next to his father Alfredo. Enzo Ferraris life story is the story of automobile racing at least for the 20th century. From his humble beginnings in the Po Valley to the Empire he built. Enzo Ferrari will be remembered as the last great Titan of an industry he helped to create. Under his 40-year leadership from 1947 to 1988. Ferrari automobiles won more than 5000 races all over the world 12 years after Enzo’s death, star driver Michael Schumacher clinched his fourth World Championship in a Ferrari.
Today the passenger cars that Ferrari disdain sell for as much as a half a million dollars each.
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