Here are 60 interesting facts about Ferrari. These were first published in Evo and Octane Magazines as part of their 60th Anniversay issue for Ferrari. Some of these are very interesting and give a nice insight into the Ferrari stable. 1. Enzo Ferrari was born on February 18, 1898, outside Modena. His grandpa was a food wholesaler, his dad Alfredo a metal-basher in the local railway workshops. 2. Enzo saw his first race at age 10, and could drive at 13. He was invalided out of the army during World War II; neither his father nor brother survived it. 3. In 1920, Alfa Romeo employed him as a team driver, and he came second in that year’s Targa Florio. In 1929, he switched from driving to administration, undertaking management of Alfa’s racing team. 4. One of Ferrari’s stranger Alfa projects was the Bimotore, a single-seater with engines at both ends. It was fast but temperamental. 5. When he wasn’t living, breathing, eating and sleeping sports and racing cars, Enzo relaxed by riding his beloved – and British – Rudge motorcycle. 6. By 1940, Enzo’s private company Auto Avio Costruzione had built a Fiat-based sports car. Alberto Ascari drove it in the 1940 Mille Miglia. It led its class until blowing up. Ferrari blamed the Fiat parts… 7. The first Ferrari car proper appeared in 1947, the Tipo 125. Its V12 engine was designed by Giaochino Columbo, and it was made at Maranello, a factory outside Modena backed partly by Mussolini so Ferrari could make tools for his war machine. 8. Ferrari had only one son – officially: Alfredino, or “Dino,” born in 1932. He died of muscular dystrophy in 1956, and his grieving papa visited his grave almost daily afterwards. 9. Enzo had, however, more than one woman. He divided his time between wife Laura and mistress Lina Lardi… with whom he had another son, Piero. When Laura died in 1978, Ferrari’s second family moved into his vast, somber villa. 10. The first Ferrari race victory was in a minor event at Rome’s Caracalla circuit in 1947. The driver was Franco Cortese. 11. The first Grand Prix a Ferrari won was the 1949 Swiss GP, where Alberto Ascari drove a supercharged 125. 12. Also in 1949, a Ferrari took the first of nine Le Mans victories for the marque, including six in a row over 1960-’65. 13. Cultivating his own enigmatic image, Enzo took to wearing sunglasses in public during the 1950s and did so until he died – even when interviewed indoors! 14. Ferrari’s “prancing horse” logo was given to Enzo by Countess Baracca, whose late World War I flying ace son Francesco had used it as his emblem. Ferrari changed its background color from white to yellow, and created an icon. 15. Mr. Ferrari’s nickname, Il Commendatore or The Commander, is thought to originate from an honor bestowed upon him by Italy’s fascist king Victor Emmanuel III. 16. Enzo’s mother Adalgisa and wife Laura hated each other, but that didn’t stop Enzo from buying a large villa in Modena and giving them half each to live in. Adalgisa Ferrari died in 1965 after, apparently, choking on a boiled egg. 17. One of the ugliest Ferrari road cars ever was also the only one bodied in Britain. A 166 was given ungainly Abbott coachwork in 1954. 18. For all his brilliance, Enzo Ferrari was volatile and prickly. His longtime chief designer and engineer Mauro Forghieri once said: “As a businessman he is excellent, as a human being he is a zero.” 19. Ferrari driver Mike Hawthorn was the first Brit to win a Championship GP when he beat Fangio’s Mercedes in 1953 at the French GP. 20. Hawthorn was devastated when Ferrari team-mate Peter Collins was killed at the Nürburgring in 1958. World Champion Hawthorn decided to retire, but died in a road accident just months later. 21. The Testa Rossa name, Italian for redhead, was given first to the 3-liter V12 engine in 1958 because its camshaft covers were painted red. It was revived in 1984 for a mid-engined supercar. 22. Ford tried to buy Ferrari for $18 million in 1963 but the deal collapsed when the Americans refused to cede Enzo total control over the racing program. Ford responded by producing the GT40. 23. Phil Hill’s Dino 246 won the 1960 Italian GP – the last major victory for a front-engined GP car. 24. Colonel Ronnie Hoare became Britain’s Ferrari importer in 1960, when he established Maranello Concessionaires at his Egham garage. 25. Tractor tycoon Ferruccio Lamborghini only decided to make a supercar of his own after complaints about the quality of his Ferrari were met with frosty indifference by Enzo. 26. The ASA was a pint-size Testa Rossa designed by Ferrari engineer Giotto Bizzarrini in 1958. It could do 113mph. However, the prohibitive price meant that in three years just 52 were sold. 27. The 1968 Daytona – or, more formally, the 365GTB/4 – disappointed some because it was front-engined when the vogue was for mid-mounted engines. At 174mph, it was still the world’s fastest car. 28. The Dino 246GT was unique in that nowhere on the car did the word Ferrari appear. Supposed to be the affordable “junior” marque, the $15,535 Dino was three times costlier than a Jaguar XJ6 in 1969. 29. Fiat bought Ferrari in 1969, taking a 40% stake that eventually increased to 90%. This still left Enzo in charge of the racing side while Fiat controlled road car production. 30. Almost all roadgoing Ferraris since the mid-1950s have been styled by Pininfarina. The 1973 308GT4 is the only one designed by Bertone. 31. The first Ferrari 308GTB came with glass-fiber bodywork but was soon remade in steel because it was so fragile. 32. The 1976 400GT was the first Ferrari to be made with an automatic gearbox. 33. Ferrari considered making a four-door car in 1980. Pininfarina‘s “Pinin” concept saloon won critical acclaim but Enzo vetoed it. 34. The most expensive Ferrari ever is a 250GTO which reputedly changed hands privately for nearly $15 million. A similar car was sold at auction in 1990 by Sotheby’s for £6.35m ($11,303,000). 35. When the Ferrari F40 was launched in 1987 to celebrate the marque’s first four decades it was, at $316,895, the most expensive car on sale in Britain. 36. In the early hours of August 14, 1988, Enzo Ferrari passed away peacefully in his sleep. He was 90. 37. The Tipo 640 of 1989 pioneered semi-automatic transmission in F1, adding wheel-mounted “paddles” for up and down. Nigel Mansell won the Brazilian GP on its first outing. 38. Ferrari was the first team to notch up 100 GP wins when Alain Prost won the 1990 French. At Belgium two years later, Ferrari entered its 500th Championship race. 39. The best-selling Ferrari models ever are the 2000-’05 360 Modena/360 Spider, with 17,500 sold. However, the best-selling single Ferrari model for which a precise figure is available is the 1986-’89 328GTS, at 6068. 40. The factory today offers 16 standard colors but can provide any paint used on a previous model. A 10-paint “historic” range is now offered for the 612 Scaglietti. 41. Although perceived as exclusive, some Ferraris are surprisingly numerous; between 1987 and ’92, 1315 F40s were made, while 1284 “ultra-rare” Ferrari Daytonas were built in 1968-’73. 42. In 1985 a Ferrari 250LM brochure fetched an astounding $1,391 at a Christie’s auction in Monaco – still a world record. 43. Ferrari engines have been used in other cars. The Lancia Stratos, Lancia Thema 8.32 and Fiat Dino all have Maranello power, while Cooper, Minardi and Scuderia Italia have used the company’s F1 engines, as did the Lancia D50 single-seater. 44. Enzo Ferrari hated Britain’s Grand Prix “industry.” So the Brits chuckled when the Ferrari F1 chassis design HQ moved to Guildford to be nearer the sport’s epicentre in 1988. 45. Ferrari’s president today, Luca di Montezemolo, is part of the Fiat-owning Agnelli family. From 1973 to ’77 he was Enzo Ferrari’s personal assistant, effectively running the F1 team at just 26, and masterminded Niki Lauda’s World Championship quest. 46. The F50 was Ferrari’s half-century celebration, and just 349 were made – at a retail price of $557,000 each. It could do 202mph and hit 60mph in 3.7sec. 47. Blues guitarist Chris Rea was so fascinated by German Count Wolfgang von Trips and the “sharknose” Ferrari in which he died in 1961, he financed a movie about them, La Passione (1997). 48. Can’t afford to buy a Ferrari? Don’t worry – you can hire one. Pingvin Avto rents out a F-355 Spyder for a cost of 25,000 rubles per day. 49. Cheesiest Ferrari role: Tony Curtis driving a 246GT in TV’s The Persuaders; naffest Ferrari appearance in a pop song: Big Red GTO by Sinitta. 50. There are more Ferrari books in print than on any other marque except Porsche, according to London bookshop Motorbooks. It stocks over 100 new titles, ranging from £4.95 ($10) for the glossy Cavallino journal to £35.99 ($72) for Dino: The V6 Ferrari by Brian Long. 51. Between 1997 and 2005, Maserati was managed by Ferrari, but Fiat has since transferred it to the same division as Alfa Romeo. 52. Ferrari’s model naming system was traditionally rooted in logic: the first official model, the 125, was so-called because 125 was the cubic-centimeter capacity of one cylinder. Starting with the 246 Dino, though, the company’s smaller cars went their own way: “24” stood for a 2.4-litre engine while “6” was the number of cylinders. This continued through the 308 and 328 models until the 348 (3.4-liter, eight-cylinder), but the F355 meant 3.5-liter and five-valves-per-cylinder. 53. In the mid-1950s, racing cars took a different route: “Tipo 158” stood for “1.5-liter, 8-cylinder” and “1512” meant “1.5-litre, 12-cylinder.” The late-’80s 640 and 641 F1 cars were named simply from their drawing office project numbers. 54. The cheapest replacement component Ferrari GB stocks costs 5p, a washer to attach an undertray. The most expensive is a 599GTB Fiorano replacement engine: $64,418. But that includes VAT. 55. Sotheby’s knocked down a driveable 1964 330GT for just $13,000 in 1985: the cheapest example it’s ever sold, around half its estimate, and the cost of a new Ford Granada then. 56. There have been 13 British Ferrari team drivers: Cliff Allison, Derek Bell, Tony Brooks, Peter Collins, Mike Hawthorn, Eddie Irvine, Nigel Mansell, Mike Parkes, Reg Parnell, Roy Salvadori, John Surtees, Peter Whitehead and Jonathan Williams. 57. Ferrari has seen peerless success in Formula One, boasting the most Constructors’ Championships, Drivers’ Championships, pole positions and outright wins. 58. The worst F1 season for Ferrari was 1980, when it scored eight constructor points; 2004 was the high-point, when by contrast it grabbed 262 points. 59. The most powerful roadgoing Ferrari ever is the 660bhp Enzo, but today’s 612bhp 599GTB Fiorano is the 11th most powerful road car of all time, following the 10th-placed 617bhp Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren. 60. In 2006, Ferrari sold 5671 cars – 635 of them in the UK. One V12-engined car is sold for every three V8s.
Posted on: Mon, 22 Jul 2013 20:22:59 +0000
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