Ferrari cars, equal measures of speed, beauty and history. The ‘prancing horse’ was a long while in the making but the first Ferrari badged car came to market in 1947.
The man who started it all was, Enzo Ferrari, born in 1898 and lived for 90 years, witnessing so much of the development of the car both for racing and personal use. He survived the First Wold War and Spanish Flu, sadly like so many, his father and older brother succumbed.
Following a career as a racing driver and setting up the Alfa Romeo racing team he, in 1929, founded the Scuderia Ferrari race team to continue acting for Alpha Romeo. This racing was known as Grand Prix racing but it was not until 1950 that Formula One Grand Prix created a world championship of drivers.
Grand Prix racing before this was aligned along national boundaries with a standard colour for each country, Rosso corsa for Italy. Ferrari supported Alpha Romeo until 1939, after that he was restricted from using his own name on cars for 4 years. Ferrari did start developing cars but the first Ferrari badged prancing horse car came in 1947.
A stunning car from the 1980’s, Ferrari 288 GTO. 288 being the engine capacity of 2885cc and GTO is the Italian initialism for Gran Turismo Omologata (Grand Tourer Homologated). This model, produced in Maranello from 1984 until 1987, was based on the very popular 308 GTB but mounting a 2.8 litre twin turbo in-line engine…