1947 The beginning
* office of the Ferrari Founder Mr Enzo
The first Ferrari road car was the 1947
125 Sport, powered by a 1.5 L V12 engine; Enzo reluctantly built and sold his automobiles to fund the Scuderia. While his beautiful and blazingly fast cars quickly gained a reputation for excellence, Enzo maintained a famous distaste for his customers, most of whom he felt were buying his cars for the prestige and not the performance.
1961 The great walkoutEnzo Ferrari's strong personality had served his company and racing team well for decades. But internal tensions reached the boiling point in November 1961 Long-time sales manager,
Girolamo Gardini, had long chafed at Enzo's wife, Laura's involvement in the company. The two frequently argued, but their dispute became a crisis for the company when Gardini made an ultimatum to Enzo: If tensions continued, he would leave the company.
Enzo was never a man to accept a challenge to his authority, and he dealt with the situation with a typically heavy hand. Gardini was ousted, as was Scuderia Ferrari manager,
Romolo Tavoni, chief engineer
Carlo Chiti, experimental sports car development chief,
Giotto Bizzarrini, and a number of others who stood by them. All were tremendous losses to the company, and many thought this might be the end of Ferrari. Indeed, the defectors immediately formed a new company,
ATS, to directly compete with Ferrari on the street and the track, and took with them
Scuderia Serenissima, one of Ferrari's best racing customers.
This "great walkout" came at an especially difficult time for Ferrari. At the urging of Chiti, the company was developing a new
250-based model to defend its honor against the
Jaguar E-Type. Development of this car, the
250 GTO, was at a critical point, with the chassis development and styling left incomplete. Even if the car could be finished, it was unclear if it could be raced successfully without Tavoni and his lieutenants.
Into this void stepped young engineer
Mauro Forghieri and long-time racing bodyman,
Sergio Scaglietti. Both were up to the task, with Forghieri successfully honing the GTO's handling and Scaglietti designing an all-new body for the car. The GTO went to
Sebring with driver
Phil Hill and placed first in class. It continued winning through 1962, brushing aside the challenge from
Jaguar and becoming one of the most famous sports cars in history.
This shakeup, and Forghieri's engineering talent, made the 1960s even more successful for Ferrari than the previous decade. The
mid-engined Dino racers laid the foundation for Forghieri's dominant 250-powered
250 P. On the street, the
Dino road cars sold strongly, and legendary models like the
275 and
Daytona were on the way.
1963-1967 The US rivalsThe big V8-powered
Shelby Cobra developed and built by the American engineer
Carroll Shelby challenged the Ferraris in the early 1960s. By mid 60's, Ford tried to buy Ferrari but no agreement was reached. Instead, after being defeated in 1964 and 1965 races the
Ford GT40 ended the dominance of
Ferrari Prototypes at the
24 Hours of Le Mans in 1966 when the GT-40 Mark II dominated the race with a 1-2-3 finish.. Ford would win again in 1967, this time with its Mark IV prototype and also in 1968 and 1969 with the same GT-40 Mark II car winning both years to close out the decade against the new and upcoming Porsche 917.
1968 Ferrari boycott
After the performance of the big V8-powered Ford at the 1967 Le Mans, the
FIA banned prototypes over 3000cc, which also affected the
Ferrari 330P models. This was announced in late 1967 and came in effect for 1968, and the Scuderia did not take part in
Sports car racing in order to protest this.
1969-1971 PorscheThese years saw a new challenger. Formerly competing with smaller cars only, the Germans entered the new 3 litre sports car prototype class in 1968 with the
Porsche 908, while Ferrari raced the
Ferrari 312P in only few events in 1969. In March of that year, the presentation of the 5 litre
Porsche 917, built in advance in 25 exemplars, had surprised also Ferrari, which answered later that year with the production of 25
Ferrari 512S, funded from the money gained by the FIAT deal. At that time, Porsche had almost a full season of experience with their new car, though, and also taken the
World Sportscar Championship where Ferrari was only 4th.
The year 1970 saw epic battles between the two teams and the many cars they entered, yet Porsche won all races except the
12 Hours of Sebring, where the victorious car and its drivers
Ignazio Giunti/
Nino Vaccarella/
Mario Andretti had their origins in Italy. Ferrari decided to give up the 512 in 1971 in order to prepare the new
Ferrari 312PB for the 1972 season, when only 3 litre class would be allowed. In addition to Porsche, the old national rival with its
Alfa Romeo T33/3 also had won two races in 1971, and thus was ranked 2nd in the World Championship, above Ferrari.
1972-1973 dominance, defeats and fare-wellThe
Ferrari 312PB models dominated the
World Sportscar Championship in 1972 against rival Alfa Romeo, as the Porsche factory did not compete after the rule changes, and Matra focused on Le Mans only. In their home race, the French won, as Ferrari did not enter in 1972 due insufficient reliability over 24 hours, in order not to blemish their otherwise perfect record in that season.
In 1973, though, the Matra team also challenged for the championship which Ferrari eventually lost with two wins, compared to Matra's five, while Alfa Romeo had not entered that year. In addition, Ferrari was now forced to race also at Le Mans, despite concerns that even the modified engine would not last. Yet, one car survived and scored an unexpected and honourable 2nd place.
Ferrari then retired from
Sports car racing to focus on the ailing
F1 effort.
1988 The Death Of Enzo
When Enzo died in 1988, Ferrari finally became a mythos. The value of used cars rose, as well as sales of current models. The last new model he commissioned was the specialist
F40.
1996 Champion Schumacher to Scuderia FerrariThe hiring of
Michael Schumacher and other members from
Benetton triggered a comeback of the F1 team, with three wins in 1996, and close yet eventually losing challenges to the driver's championship in the years 1997 to 1999.
2000-2004 Schumacher Dominates F1As of 2004, Fiat Group owns 56% of Ferrari,
Mediobanca owns 15%,
Commerzbank owns 10%,
Lehman Brothers owns 7%, and Enzo's adopted son
Piero Ferrari owns 10%. Of these, Ferrari is under main control of the Fiat Group, containing Alfa Romeo as well.
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