Historical Figure
Enzo Ferrari
1898–1988
Italian racing driver, engineer and entrepreneur (1898–1988)
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Biography
Enzo Anselmo Giuseppe Maria Ferrari was an Italian racing driver and entrepreneur, the founder of Scuderia Ferrari in Grand Prix motor racing, and subsequently of the Ferrari automobile marque. Under his leadership in Formula One, Ferrari won nine World Drivers' Championships and eight World Constructors' Championships during his lifetime.
Timeline
The story of Enzo Ferrari, told in moments.
Joins Alfa Romeo's racing department as a driver. Wins his first Grand Prix at Ravenna in 1923. After two friends die in crashes, he admits he's racing "half-heartedly." Founds Scuderia Ferrari in 1929 as a racing team for Alfa Romeo. The prancing horse badge comes from the family of a dead WWI fighter pilot. His mother gave it to Baracca before he was shot down.
Founds Ferrari S.p.A. after the war. During the conflict, his factory made machine tools for Mussolini, got bombed by the Allies, and relocated to Maranello. The first Ferrari-badged car debuts. The first major win comes in 1949: the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The Great Walkout. His sales manager, chief engineer, sports car director, and half the senior staff quit to found a rival company, ATS. They take two drivers with them. Ferrari promotes junior engineers on the spot. The 25-year-old Mauro Forghieri becomes technical director. ATS folds within a year. John Surtees wins the title in 1964.
Sells 50% of Ferrari to Fiat, but keeps total control of racing. Ford had offered $18 million in 1963 but Ferrari walked when they wouldn't give him independence over the racing team. Between 1955 and 1971, eight Ferrari drivers died in his cars. The Vatican newspaper compared him to Saturn, who devoured his own sons.
Dies in Modena at 90. His legitimate son Dino died of muscular dystrophy in 1956 at age 24. His illegitimate son Piero, kept secret for decades, was only recognized after his wife Laura's death in 1978. Piero is now vice chairman and owns 10%.
In Their Own Words (5)
They are cars which the sporting client can use on the road during the week and race on Sundays.
As quoted by Quentin Wilson, Great Car (New York: Dorling Kindersley Publishing, 2001), 1st American edition, p. 232, 2001
His death has deprived us of a great champion - one that I loved very much. My past is scarred with grief; parents, brother, son. My life is full of sad memories. I look back and see the faces of my loved ones, and among them I see him.
Ferrari's response to the death of famed racing driver Gilles Villeneueve in 1982, as quoted by Gerald Donaldson in Gilles Villeneuve: The Life of the Legendary Racing Driver (1989), p. 322, 1989
I had deluded myself - as fathers often do - that our attentions would help [Dino] to regain his health. I had convinced myself that [Dino] was like one of my cars, and so I made a table of the calorific values of the various food he had to eat - types of food that would not harm his kidneys - and I kept an up-to-date daily record of his albumins, of the specific gravity of his urine, the level of urea in his blood, of his diuresis, etc., so I would have an indication of the process of the disease. The sad truth was quite different: my son was gradually wasting away with progressive muscular dystrophy. He was dying of that terrible disease which no one has ever been able to understand or cure, and against which there is no defense, aside from genetic prophylaxis (i.e. a medication or a treatment designed and used to prevent a disease from occurring).
As quoted by Gino Rancati, Enzo Ferrari: The Man (1988), p. 87-88, 1988
Among musicians, I had a true friend, Maestro Cantelli. He was a young man of particularly noble sentiments.
As quoted by Fondazione Arturo Toscanini,
Il secondo è il primo dei perdenti. (The runner-up is the first of losers.)
Artifacts (15)
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