Enzo has been quite an enigmatic character keeping his life personal and a man that would never be seen on vacations, but his passion for racing was well known to everyone. He would often come across as arrogant bastard, who gives no fucks whatsoever. But besides that there is alot that Enzo has done.
Enzo Ferrari was born on 18 February 1898, his birth was recorded 2 day later became of heavy snowfall in Modena that season. While growing up Enzo had many interests few of them he would share with his older brother Alfredo Jr. nicknamed ‘Dino’, at the tender age of 9 Enzo had one of his articles published by the largest national sports paper in Italy. Inter Milan Defeats Modena 7-1. Next Enzo wanted to become an opera singer; every Saturday night Enzo's father would take both Enzo & Dino to the theatre. As Enzo fell in love with every other girl who would sing, he figured the best chance for him to score with the ladies of the stage was to become a tenor. Enzo's third and most enduring passion was speed, since a very young age the Ferrari brothers could be seen playing on streets of Modena with their bicycle, but of course that speed wasn’t enough.
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| Enzo Ferrari |
THE RACER
Ar an early age he was very passionate about racing and cars. When Enzo was 10 Y/O his father took him to watch a motorcar race in Bologna, Italy. Enzo was very fascinated by the sheer speed at which the driver's raced and overtook each other’s. Obviously the cars weren't as fast as, what we see today but motorsports has always been a thumping adrenaline rush and at the same time extremely life-threatening sport. In coming decade Enzo received little proper education, and in his youth during WWI he was shoeing mules as his duty to the Alpine Artillery Regiment of the Italian Army. Both his father and brother died in 1916 as a result of Italian flu outbreak and the family business collapsed. Enzo himself became severely ill during the 1918 flu widespread which he barely survived, and was discharged from Italian service. He applied for a job at Fiat, was turned down, later Enzo joined CMN (Construzioni Meccaniche National), a small car manufacturer with a taste for racing. Enzo worked in their factory, scrapping trucks into small cars, and was offered a chance to race their 15 hp open wheeled racer. Which he would never turned down given his love for racing.
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| Enzo Ferrari driving Alfa Romeo |
SCUDERIA FERRARI
After leaving CMN he joined Alfa Romeo as a mechanic/racer, where he eventually started the legendary racing team: Scuderia Ferrari. In 1922 Benito Mussolini seized power in Italy and established a oppressive fascist government that sponsored an aggressive nationalism as a mimic of the Roman Empire. The name of a winning driver, like Enzo, was used as one of many propaganda tools. He was awarded the Cavaliere dell'ordine della Corona d' Italia and was promoted to the rank of Commendatore. In Mussolini's eyes Ferrari had won all his races for Italy. In reality it was the only job Ferrari could do.
Enzo Ferrari's greatest victory was at the 1924 Coppa Acerbo at Pescara, with an Alfa Romeo R.L. That and many more successful races got Enzo a recognized name.
In 1926, overburdened and stressed, Enzo experienced an emotional breakdown and stopped racing. He turned down a few offers, including one for a big race in Mussolini's presence. He switched to fixing cars for Alfa Romeo, but his racing career was mostly over, though he did race in 1927 and a few times subsequently, but with less success than he had previously. In 1929 he started Scuderia Ferrari, very few people realize that the DNA for every Ferrari was actually born on Alfa Romeo's payroll. Enzo built a robust racing team from scratch, selecting some of the greatest pre-war drivers in Europe to lead the Scuderia to victory. A team of racing drivers and technical assistants working for Alfa Romeo. Ferrari soon made similar deals with Pirelli and Shell.
Interesting Fact : Shell & Ferrari is the most famous and long standing partnerships in the history of motorsports counting 92 years in 2021 & 70 Years in Scuderia Ferraris Formula 1 History.
His team made an impression after 8 victories in 22 competitions. With up to 50 full- and part-time drivers, it was the largest team ever gathered by one man.
Enzo's talent as a team organizer and director superseded that of a racer.
Enzo believed competition always brought out the best in people. He was famous for pitting his drivers against one another, creating little mind games that would often strike fear of unemployment into the hearts of his team. He believed this would drive them to greater success, going so far as to proudly proclaim.
An insecure racing driver is a fast racing driver.
It was a nightmare for many of them, but ultimately, the opportunity to win that Enzo provided was greater than the mental price tag it came with.
Enzo left Alfa Romeo under protest of Alfa Romeo taking control of their racing efforts in 1938. A contract clause forbade him from building or racing cars bearing the Ferrari name, or the yellow horse, for four years. During that time, he built an auto part supply company, dubbed "Auto Avio Costruzioni." Like everything else in Italy, it was seized by the Fascists and forced to manufacture parts and vehicles for the war effort. This would give Enzo a jumpstart on the infrastructure it was going to take to build an auto empire.
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| Ferrari 125 S |
Enzo was always the first guy in the room to not give a fuck what anyone else thought, he found a loophole in his contract with Alfa Romeo that allowed him to engineer and build what is considered the first true Ferrari: The Tipo 815, under the Auto Avio Costruzioni name, but things weren’t smooth sailing after that. Bombing destroyed his factory in Modena, it permanently relocated to Maranello, where it was promptly bombed again. On the second rebuild his accountants begged him to build the facilities necessary to produce street cars as a revenue generator to fund his racing team.
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| Tipo 815 |
Later In 1946 Ferrari Tipo 125, a 1.5-liter car, was built in collaboration with his old friend G. Colombo, and it was entered in the 1947 Grand Prix of Monaco. Ferrari participated in the first F1 World Championship in 1950. He won the 1951 F1 British Grand Prix and dominated the World Championships in the early 50s. He also had a business victory when Lancia withdrew from racing and its parent company, Fiat, turned over all Lancia's cars to Ferrari. His F1 successes in 1956, 1958, 1961 and 1964 were paralleled by even more victories at the Mille Miglia and Le Mans. His total of 14 victories at Le Mans included six in a row in 1960-1965.
THE PRANCING HORSE
The famous prancing horse emblem came from an Italian pilot of WWI-ERA, which Enzo got from Francesco Baracca. In battle Francesco always flew a plane decorated with the horse surrounded by yellow, and a few years after his death, Ferrari met Baracca’s mother, who told him to put the horse on his cars for good luck. The idea stuck with him.
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| Francesco Baracca |
Which means that Ferrari’s emblem and Porsche’s emblem come from the same place. Baracca first put the prancing horse on his plane after he shot down a German pilot over Stuttgart, the hometown of Porsche, as a semi hat tip to his fallen, yet worthy, adversary. As you can see below, the horse is deeply integral to Stuttgart's coat of arms.
NEVER SHORT OF ENEMIES
- Enzo faced his fiercest rivalry with Henry Ford II. Ford tried to buy Ferrari for $18-million, but negotiations broke down at the 11th hour over Enzo’s control of the racing team. What followed was the ultimate captains of industry grudge match, and it led directly to the GT40.
- Ferruccio Lamborghini famously owned a Ferrari 250GT, which he took in to be serviced at the Maranello headquarters after realizing that the clutch was identical to the one being used on his production line. He politely asked Enzo for a replacement part, who replied "You're just a silly tractor manufacturer, how could you possibly know anything about sports cars?" Four months later Ferruccio unveiled the Lamborghini 350GTV, and one of the greatest rivalries in automotive history was born.
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| Ferruccio Lamborghini |
- Carroll Shelby really didn't like Enzo, In 1950's Shelby had frequently driven for the Italian manufacturer before breaking his relationship with the brand. After the deaths of several drivers including his friend Luigi Musso, at the '58 French Grand Prix, Shelby made it his personal mission to despise Enzo, blaming him personally for the deaths of his buddies. That beef with Enzo lead to the birth of the legendary Cobra Daytona, which strangely used WWII-era German tech to beat Ferrari’s on European tracks. Using a theory originally developed by the Nazis, Shelby Cobra had a slick aerodynamic profile that blew the competition away on the longer European tracks. On shorter tracks, they used the less aerodynamic Cobra. The combination of the two allowed them to dominate the leaderboard, leading Shelby to destroy Enzo in the FIA World Sportscar Championship, as the first American manufacturer to ever win it. Unsurprisingly, the technology Shelby used immediately became the benchmark for success.
Enzo Will Be Remembered
Enzo famously said “Aerodynamics are for people who can’t build engines.” Ironically, the last car Enzo ever built before his death, the F40, was the most aerodynamic car of its era. A lot of people still consider the 200 mph icon the ultimate Ferrari, even though it didn’t have a V12. If there was ever a car that personified the disagreed, brilliant, tortuous genius man like Enzo, Ferrari F40 was that machine.
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| Ferrari F40 |
Just weeks after Enzo Ferrari's death, the Italian Grand Prix was held. The result was a 1-2 finish for Ferrari, with the Austrian Gerhard Berger taking first place and Milan inborn Michele Alboreto second. It was, interestingly, the only race the McLaren did not win that season.
Scuderia Ferrari as a constructor, has a record 16 Constructors' Championships, the last of which was won in 2008. Alberto Ascari, Juan Manuel Fangio, Mike Hawthorn, Phil Hill, John Surtees, Niki Lauda, Jody Scheckter, Michael Schumacher and Kimi Räikkönen have won a record 15 Drivers' Championships for the team. Since Kimi's title in 2007 the team narrowly lost out on the 2008 drivers' title with Felipe Massa and the 2010 and 2012 drivers' titles with Fernando Alonso. The 2020 Tuscan Grand Prix marked Ferrari's 1000th Grand Prix in Formula One.
Michael Schumacher is the team's most successful driver. Joining the team in 1996 and departing in 2006, he won five consecutive drivers' titles and 72 Grands Prix victories for the team. His titles came consecutively between 2000 and 2004, and the team won consecutive constructors' titles between 1999 and 2004; this was the team's most successful period.
In 2003-2004 companies production model car was named after enzo known as Enzo Ferrari. It was built with F1 technology: carbon-fiber body, F1 sequential-shift transmission, and carbon-ceramic brake discs. The Enzo Ferrari is the first model to have the new V12 power plant, making it the fastest street-legal race car Ferrari has ever produced. It shares the base platform with its twin, the Maserati MC12, which is both a street car and a GT racing car. Only 399 Enzo Ferraris were built and sold.
Legacy of Enzo Ferrari would never be forgotten given the impact of his company, the incredibly high standards of his cars, and the triumphs of the Scuderia Ferrari, the Italian Titan obviously led a successful, influential life. Ferrari has been celebrated in books, films,and television; either through encouragement or outright rivalry, Enzo has inspired a generationof engineers and manufacturers to push the boundaries on what a car should look and drivelike. That man really was the defination of "If you can dream it, you can do it."
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