The 1930s - Scuderia Ferrari:
In 1929, Enzo Ferrari left Alfa Romeo's employment to start his own racing stable (scuderia
in Italian). Scuderia Ferrari did not race cars with the Ferrari name,
though the Alfas they used on the track did sport the prancing horse.
Race cars came to the scuderia from Alfa for tuning for almost a decade,
and the Ferrari shop in Modena built its first car, the Alfa Romeo 158
Grand Prix racer, in 1937. In 1938, Alfa took its racing program
in-house, and Enzo Ferrari went with it. After 10 years on his own,
though, working for someone else proved difficult. He left Alfa (or was
dismissed) for the last time in 1939.
The 1940s - Ferrari Survives the War:
When
Enzo Ferrari left Alfa Romeo, he agreed to not use his name in
connection with racing for four years. That wasn't so bad; WWII
curtailed racing for most of those four years anyway. Ferrari moved from
Modena to Maranello during the war, where it remains today. In 1945,
Ferrari began work on the 12-cylinder engine the company would be famous
for, and in 1947, Enzo Ferrari drove the first 125 S out of the factory
gates. Post-war racing was Ferrari's finest hour on the track. Driver
Luigi Chinetti was the first to import Ferrari cars to the U.S. in the
late 1940s, including the first highway Ferrari, the 166 Inter.
The 1950s - Race- and Road-Ready:
During
the 1950s, Ferrari had legendary engineers like Lampredi and Jano on
the payroll, and bodies designed by the legendary Pinin Farina. Every
time a race car was improved, the road car was the beneficiary. In 1951,
a Ferrari 375 brought the team its first victory -- over Alfa Romeo, no
less. The 357 America hit the market in 1953, as did the first in the
long line of 250 GTs. Production of all Ferrari cars grew from 70 or 80 a
year in 1950 to more than 300 by 1960.
Enzo suffered a personal tragedy in 1956, when his son Dino, who had
helped develop Ferrari's V6 engine, died of muscular dystrophy at the
age of 24.
The 1960s - Turbulent Times :
The
'60s started out pretty good for Ferrari: Phil Hill won the Formula 1
championship in 1961 using a 1.5-liter V6 race car nicknamed "Dino." It
was the era of the sexy, swooping 250 Testa Rossa. But things got rough
for the Prancing Horse, like when Carroll Shelby brought his Cobra to
European race tracks. After years of rivalry, the Texan beat the Italian
in 1964. Ferrari was having financial troubles as well, but that was
nothing new. There were talks with Ford about a buyout, but Enzo Ferrari
instead walked out on that deal and sold part of the company to Fiat in
1969.
The 1970s - What Gas Crisis? :
The V6
engine made it to a production model in the Dino 246 of the early '70s.
In 1972, the company built the Fiorano test circuit next to the factory.
Ferrari introduced the Berlinetta Boxer flat-12 engine to the world at
the 1971 Turin Motor Show in the 365 GT/4 Berlinetta Boxer, and the car
hit showrooms in 1976. The next year, Carozzeria Scaglietti di Modena,
Ferrari's design house, was officially incorporated into the company.
Cars were churned out, by Ferrari standards, with some models being
built in the thousands. But the '70s ended on an odd note with the
introduction of the automatic--but still V12--400i.
The 1980s - Greed Is Good -- for Ferrari:
Let's
skip to 1985, when one of the most iconic of all Ferraris appeared on
posters across the world: the Testarossa (note that this time, the model
name is one word, not two). The '80s also saw the convertible Mondial
and the realization of Enzo Ferrari's dream, the F40. It was built to
commemorate the company's 40th anniversary, with a carbon-fiber body, a
giant wing, and Kevlar panels. Ferrari's brand recognition was at an
all-time high, with a (replica) 1961 250 GT starring in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. But in 1988, Enzo Ferrari died, at the age of 90. Fiat's share of Ferrari rose to 90%, and son Piero became VP.
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