- Enzo Ferrari was born in 1898. Forced to leave school when his father died, he started work as a tuning instructor in the Modena Fire Brigade'workshop. Having served in World War I he found work as a test driver in Turin in late 1918. In 1920, he moved to Alfa Romeo and established a relationship that lasted two decades and a career that took him from test driver to race driver to sales assistant and finally to the post of Director of the Alfa Racing Division until 1939. - In 1929 he founded the Scuderia Ferrari in Modena, with the prime purpose of organising racing for its members. This company continue to help Alfa racing, until after World War II it started to develop its own car. - The first car wearing the "Ferrari" name was the 125, a 1.5 litres V12 sports car which appeared to be a racing car. From this car we can find Enzo's philosophy was always "Racing come first". Many of his cars, at least those during the years under his guide, were designed with racing concern. Other cars, especially those aimed at US market, were made to "subsidise my racing programme", as he said. From the start to end, he was remain a racing man, rather than a sports car manufacturer. - During the years while he was in control, he spent most of his time in F1, then GT racing and endurance racing. His best and favourite road car was 250GTO, which is also developed for racing. - However, to find financial support for his F1 team, in 1969 he sold 50% shares to Fiat after talks with Henry Ford broke down. ( as a result, the F1 team depart from the factory and still under 100% of his control ) Thereafter the company concentrated more on road cars that customers really want, thus emerged many excellent road cars such as Daytona, Dino, 308GTB and so on. As a result, the market status of Ferrari was even stronger than before. After his death in 1988, the majority 90% shares came into Fiat's hand. |