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LEFT:
The sleek red lines of the Ferrari: a world record 964 Ferraris parade
around the Silverstone F1 circuit.
BELOW:
Enzo Ferrari testing his eight-cylinder Alfa Romeo, 1924.
Foundation
and History
The Ferrari journey began when
the young Enzo Ferrari made his
competitive debut in the Parma
Poggio di Berceto hillclimb race in
1919. Driving a 2.3L four-cylinder
CMN 15/20, the 21-year-old came
fourth. Of the 47 races he entered,
he won only 13, and in the mid-
1920s he decided to pursue his love
of building racing cars. In 1929 he
formed Scuderia Ferrari in Modena
with the aim of concentrating solely
on motorsports; his racing “stable”
(translating from scuderia) would
offer amateur owner-drivers the
opportunity to race. The company
had no initial desire to produce road
cars and its early years remained
utterly focused on the manufacture
of racing cars and sponsoring
drivers. Enzo Ferrari decided to
quit competitive racing with the
approaching birth of his son Alfredo
(better known as Dino) and his
ever-growing workload as the head
of Scuderia. His final race was
behind the wheel of an Alfa Romeo
8C 2300MM at the Circuito Tre
Province on August 9, 1931, where
he finished in second place.
Ferrari enjoyed success preparing
cars and racing drivers (often in
Alfa Romeos) and by 1933 he had
taken over Alfa Romeo’s racing
department. In 1937 Scuderia
Ferrari built the Alfa Romeo 158
Alfetta: it would become one of
the most successful racing cars ever
produced, winning 47 of the 54
Grands Prix that it was entered in.
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