Enzo Ferrari's Early Years at Alfa Romeo:
Enzo worked for Alfa Romeo from 1920 - 1929. He always wanted to be a racing driver, and he achieved tha dream whilst at Alfa Romeo. And it was at Alfa that he adopted the cavallino, or prancing horse, insignia for his racecar.
In 1929, he moved on and started Scuderia Ferrari in Modena, hisprivately owned Alfa Romeo racing team.
The 1930s - Scuderia Ferrari:
Finally in 1929, Enzo eft Alfa Romeo and to started his own racing school (scuderia in Italian). At first he did not race the cars with the Ferrari name, although the Alfas they used on the track did sport the prancing horse.
He used Alfa Romeos for racing for almost a decade, and the Ferrari shop in Modena built its first car, the Alfa Romeo 158 Grand Prix racer, in 1937. Then in 1938, Alfa Romeo decided to take its racing program in-house, and Enzo Ferrari went with it, but after 10 years on his own, he could not work for anyone else and decided to leave Alfa. He left Alfa (or was dismissed) for the last time in 1939.
The 1940s - Ferrari Survives the War:
It wasn't that easy leaving Alfa - Enzo Ferrari agreed 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.
During the war, Ferrari moved from Modena to Maranello, where it remains today. Then in 1945, Ferrari started to work on the famous 12-cylinder engine, and in 1947, Enzo drove the first 125 S out of the factory gates.
Ferrari started to prosper after the war with his 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 Cars:
Ferrari was fortunate to have engineers like Lampredi and Jano on the payroll. Bodies were designed by the legendary Pinin Farina and with such success on the track, road cars would become the beneficiaries of the racing pedigree and the stunning lines of Pinnifarina.
Then in 1951, a Ferrari 375 brought the team its first victory. Following that, the 357 America hit the market in 1953, as did the first in the long line of 250 GTs.
In 1950 Ferrari was producing no more than 70 or 80 cars per year but by 1960 production had increased to 300, but in 1956 Enzo suffered a personal tragedy 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 1960s started well for Ferrari: Phil Hill won the Formula 1 championship in 1961 using a 1.5-liter V6 race car nicknamed "Dino." Ferrari then produced the sexy, swooping 250 Testa Rossa.
Ferrari then struggled when Carroll Shelby brought his Cobra to European race tracks. The Texan finally beat the Italian in 1964. This was at a time when Ferrari was in financial difficulty. There were even 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 beautiful Ferrari Dino hit the market in the early 70's and to support F1 racing, Ferrari built the Fiorano test circuit next to the factory. Yet another gorgeous car rolled off the production line, the Berlinetta Boxer with a flat-12 engine. This was revealed to the world at the 1971 Turin Motor Show and the car hit showrooms in 1976. The next year, Carozzeria Scaglietti di Modena, Ferrari's design house, was officially incorporated into the company.
Production increased with some models being built in the thousands and whilst Ferrari was churning out the smaller V8's of the 308 range and the larger 365 Daytona, they even had time to introduce a US sourced automatic box for the 2+2 400.
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.
The 1990s to Current - A New Era:
In 1991, Luca di Montezemolo took the reins of the Prancing Horse. The supercar streak continued with the F50, but the '90s had a wider offering of smaller engines, like the V8 in the F355 series. There were still V12s to be had, of course, like the Testarossas that continued to be built through the mid-90s. In 2003, Enzo Ferrari got his due, with a 230-mph supercar named for the company's founder. On the track, the hot-blooded Ferrari cars met their match in the cool German driving of Michael Schumacher, who raced Ferraris to seven F1 championships between 1994 and 2004.
Today's Ferraris include the 430, the 430 Scuderia, the 612 and the 599 GTB. The brand is back and with Ferrari leading on the track, the future couldn't be better with the soon to be released 458 Italia