Early history

Scuderia Ferrari

Scuderia Ferrari

Scuderia Ferrari is the racing team division of the Ferrari automobile marque. The team currently only races in Formula One but has competed in numerous classes of motorsport since its formation in 1929, including sportscar racing....

 was founded by Enzo Ferrari

Enzo Ferrari

Enzo Anselmo Ferrari Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian race car driver and entrepreneur, the founder of the Scuderia Ferrari Grand Prix motor racing team, and subsequently of the Ferrari car manufacturer...

 in 1929 to enter amateur drivers in various races, though Ferrari himself had raced in CMN (Costruzioni Maccaniche Nazionali) and Alfa Romeo

Alfa Romeo

Alfa Romeo Automobiles S.p.A. is an Italian manufacturer of cars. Founded as A.L.F.A. on June 24, 1910, in Milan, the company has been involved in car racing since 1911, and has a reputation for building expensive sports cars...

 cars before that date. The idea came about on the night of November 16 at a dinner in Bologna

Bologna

Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...

, where Ferrari solicited financial help from textile heirs Augusto and Alfredo Caniato and wealthy amateur racer Mario Tadini. He then gathered a team which at its peak included over forty drivers, most of whom raced in various Alfa Romeo 8C

Alfa Romeo 8C

-1935 Monoposto 8C 35 Type C:Eight 3.8 litre versions, sharing no castings with the earlier blocks, were individually built for racing in five months, most being used in the Alfa Romeo Monoposto 8C 35 Type C, as raced by Scuderia Ferrari. The 3.8 produced at 5500 rpm, and had from...

 cars; Ferrari himself continued racing, with moderate success, until the birth of his first son Dino

Alfredo Ferrari

Alfredo Ferrari , nicknamed Alfredino or Dino, was the son of Enzo Ferrari. Enzo decided to name Alfredo after his grandfather...

 in 1932. The well-known prancing horse blazon first appeared at the 1932 Spa 24 Hours

Spa 24 Hours

The Total 24 Hours of Spa is an endurance racing event held annually in Belgium at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. Conceived by Jules de Their and Henri Langlois Van Ophem just one year after the first 24 Hours of Le Mans, the race was run under the auspices of the Royal Automobile Club Belgium...

 in Belgium on a two-car team of Alfa Romeo 8C

Alfa Romeo 8C

-1935 Monoposto 8C 35 Type C:Eight 3.8 litre versions, sharing no castings with the earlier blocks, were individually built for racing in five months, most being used in the Alfa Romeo Monoposto 8C 35 Type C, as raced by Scuderia Ferrari. The 3.8 produced at 5500 rpm, and had from...

 2300 Spiders, which finished first and second.

In 1933 Alfa Romeo experienced economic difficulties, and withdrew its in-house team from racing. From then, the Scuderia Ferrari became the acting racing team of Alfa Romeo, when the factory released to the Scuderia the up-to-date Monoposto Tipo B racers. In 1935 Enzo Ferrari and Luigi Bazzi built the Alfa Romeo Bimotore, the first car to wear a Ferrari badge on the radiator cowl. Ferrari managed numerous established drivers (notably Tazio Nuvolari

Tazio Nuvolari

Tazio Giorgio Nuvolari was an Italian motorcycle and racecar driver, known as Il Mantovano Volante or Nivola. He was the 1932 European Champion in Grand Prix motor racing...

, Giuseppe Campari

Giuseppe Campari

Giuseppe Campari was an Italian opera singer and Grand Prix motor racing driver.-Racing career:Born Giuseppe Campari near the city of Lodi southwest of Milan, as a teenager he went to work for the Alfa Romeo automobile company...

, Achille Varzi

Achille Varzi

Achille Varzi , was an Italian Grand Prix driver.-Career:Born in Galliate, province of Novara , Achille Varzi was the son of a prosperous textile manufacturer...

 and Louis Chiron

Louis Chiron

Louis Alexandre Chiron was a Grand Prix driver.-Career:As a teenager, Louis Chiron fell in love with cars and racing. He learned to drive at a young age and joined the Grand Prix circuit after World War I where he had been requisitioned from the artillery section to serve as a chauffeur...

) and several talented rookies (such as Tadini

Tadini

Tadini was an Italian and itinerant ophthalmologist who lived in the second half of the 18th century. Advertisements in old newspapers testify to the fact that he performed eye operations in many towns in Europe, including Lübeck and Ghent. Tadini had a box containing artificial lenses made of...

, Guy Moll

Guy Moll

Guillaume Laurent "Guy" Moll was a French racing driver.Moll was the son of a French father and Spanish mother who had emigrated to Algeria, then a French colony. He had only started racing in 1930, running a Lorraine-Dietrich in sporadic local events in Algeria...

, Carlo Maria Pintacuda

Carlo Maria Pintacuda

Carlo Maria Pintacuda was a motor-racing driver from Italy.born in Florence, he was one of the greatest drivers from the "Florentine School" alongside Emilio Materassi, Gastone Brilli-Peri, Clemente Biondetti and Giulio Masetti, and won two editions of legendary Mille Miglia races, in 1935 and 1937...

, and Antonio Brivio

Antonio Brivio

Antonio Brivio was an Italian bobsledder and racing driver.-Auto racing career:...

) from his headquarters in Viale Trento e Trieste, Modena, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, until 1938, at which point Alfa Romeo made him the manager of the factory racing division, Alfa Corse

Alfa Corse

Alfa Corse is the name of Alfa Romeo's factory racing team. Throughout the years, Alfa Corse has competed in various forms of motorsport, from Grand Prix motor racing to touring car racing....

. Alfa Romeo had bought the shares of the Scuderia Ferrari in 1937 and transferred, from January 1, 1938, the official racing activity to Alfa Corse

Alfa Corse

Alfa Corse is the name of Alfa Romeo's factory racing team. Throughout the years, Alfa Corse has competed in various forms of motorsport, from Grand Prix motor racing to touring car racing....

 whose new buildings were being erected next to the Alfa factory at Portello

Portello, Milan

Portello is a district of Milan, Italy, part of the Zone 8 administrative division of the city, located north-west of the centre. It is best known as a car-manufacturing area, as it used to house facilities of Alfa Romeo , Darracq, Citroën, and Fiat. The district also includes one of the major...

 (Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

). The Viale Trento e Trieste, Modena facilities then remained active for assistance to the racing customers. In October 1939 Enzo Ferrari left Alfa when the racing activity stopped; his company became Auto Avio Costruzioni Ferrari, which manufactured machine tools. The deal with Alfa included the condition that he not use the Ferrari name on cars for four years. In future years, SEFAC was used, for Scuderia Enzo Ferrari Automobili Corsa.

Despite his agreement with Alfa, Ferrari immediately began work a racecar of his own, the Tipo 815 (eight cylinders, 1.5 L displacement). The 815s, designed by Alberto Massimino

Alberto Massimino

Alberto Massimino was an Italian automotive engineer.Born in Turin, he studied mechanical engineering in Switzerland and worked for FIAT , where he followed Vittorio Jano who had left for Alfa Romeo. The 1500 cc, 12-cylinder 806/504 was driven by Pietro Bordino in the Gran Premio di Milano...

, were thus the first true Ferrari cars, but after Alberto Ascari

Alberto Ascari

Alberto Ascari was an Italian racing driver and twice Formula One World Champion. He is one of only two Italian Formula One World Champions in the history of the sport, and the only one winning his two championships in a Ferrari....

 and the Marchese Lotario Rangoni Machiavelli di Modena drove them in the 1940 Mille Miglia

Mille Miglia

The Mille Miglia was an open-road endurance race which took place in Italy twenty-four times from 1927 to 1957 ....

, World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 put a temporary end to racing and the 815s saw no more competition. Ferrari continued to manufacture machine tools (specifically oleodynamic grinding machines); in 1943 he moved his headquarters to Maranello

Maranello

Maranello is a town and comune in the region of Emilia-Romagna in Northern Italy, 18 km from Modena, with a population of 16,841 as of 2009. It is best known as the home of Ferrari S.p.A. and the Scuderia Ferrari Formula One racing team...

, where in 1944 it was bombed.

Rules for a Grand Prix World Championship had been laid out before the war but it took several years afterward for the series to get going; meanwhile Ferrari rebuilt his works in Maranello and constructed the 12-cylinder, 1.5 L Tipo 125, which competed at several non-championship Grands Prix. The car made its debut in the 1948 Italian Grand Prix

1948 Italian Grand Prix

The 1948 Italian Grand Prix was a Grand Prix motor race held at Valentino Park on September 5, 1948. It was won by French driver Jean-Pierre Wimille in an Alfa Romeo 158.- Classification :-References:...

 with Raymond Sommer

Raymond Sommer

Raymond Sommer was a Grand Prix motor racing driver....

, and achieved its first win at the minor Circuito di Garda with Giuseppe Farina

Giuseppe Farina

Emilio Giuseppe "Nino" Farina was an Italian racing driver. He stands out in the history of Grand Prix motor racing for his much copied 'straight-arm' driving style and his status as the first ever Formula One World Champion.-Biography:Born in Turin, Italy and nicknamed "Nino", Farina was a doctor...

.

Formula One

Ferrari is the most successful team in the history of Formula One

Formula One

Formula One, also known as Formula 1 or F1 and referred to officially as the FIA Formula One World Championship, is the highest class of single seater auto racing sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile . The "formula" designation in the name refers to a set of rules with which...

 racing, contesting every World Championship season since , winning 15 Drivers' Championships and 16 Constructors' Championships.

Sports cars

From the late 1940s to the early 1970s, Ferrari competed in sports car racing

Sports car racing

Sports car racing is a form of circuit auto racing with automobiles that have two seats and enclosed wheels. They may be purpose-built or related to road-going sports cars....

 with great success, winning the World Sportscar Championship

World Sportscar Championship

The World Sportscar Championship was the world series run for sports car racing by the FIA from 1953 to 1992.The championship evolved from a small collection of the most important sportscar, endurance and road racing events in Europe and North America with dozens of gentleman drivers at the grid,...

 13 times. Ferrari cars (including non-works entries) won the Mille Miglia

Mille Miglia

The Mille Miglia was an open-road endurance race which took place in Italy twenty-four times from 1927 to 1957 ....

 8 times, the Targa Florio

Targa Florio

The Targa Florio was an open road endurance automobile race held in the mountains of Sicily near Palermo. Founded in 1906, it was the oldest sports car racing event, part of the World Sportscar Championship between 1955 and 1973...

 7 times and the 24 Hours of Le Mans

24 Hours of Le Mans

The 24 Hours of Le Mans is the world's oldest sports car race in endurance racing, held annually since near the town of Le Mans, France. Commonly known as the Grand Prix of Endurance and Efficiency, race teams have to balance speed against the cars' ability to run for 24 hours without sustaining...

 9 times.

Ferrari scored early successes in sportcars, taking wins in the 1950 and 1951 Mille Miglia

Mille Miglia

The Mille Miglia was an open-road endurance race which took place in Italy twenty-four times from 1927 to 1957 ....

, although the 1951 vistory resulted in a lengthy litigation when Ascari crashed through a barrier and killed a local doctor.

The 1953 launch of the World Sportscar Championship

World Sportscar Championship

The World Sportscar Championship was the world series run for sports car racing by the FIA from 1953 to 1992.The championship evolved from a small collection of the most important sportscar, endurance and road racing events in Europe and North America with dozens of gentleman drivers at the grid,...

 appealed to Enzo Ferrari, and the company launched a dizzying array of sports racers over the next three years. This included the traditional compact V12-powered 166 MM

Ferrari 166 S

The Ferrari 166 S was an evolution of Ferrari's 125 S sports race car that became a sports car for the street in the form of the 166 Inter. Only 39 Ferrari 166 S's were produced, soon followed by the production of the 166 Mille Miglia which was made in much larger numbers from 1949 to 1952...

 and 250 MM, the larger V12 290, 340, and 375 MM and 315, 335, and 410 S, the four-cylinder 500, 625, 750, and 860 Monzas

Ferrari Monza

A Ferrari Monza is one of a series of cars built by Ferrari. In the early 1950s, Ferrari shifted from using the compact Gioacchino Colombo-designed V12 engine in its smallest class of sports racers to a line of four-cylinder engines designed by Aurelio Lampredi...

, and the six-cylinder 118 and 121 LM. With this potent lineup, Ferrari was able to claim six of the first seven WSC titles: 1953, 1954, 1956, 1957, and 1958.

Throughout the 1960s, Ferrari were a dominant force in sportscar racing, winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans 6 years in a row from 1960 to 1965.

The 1970s were the last decade Ferrari entered as a works effort in sports car racing

Sports car racing

Sports car racing is a form of circuit auto racing with automobiles that have two seats and enclosed wheels. They may be purpose-built or related to road-going sports cars....

. After an uninspired performance in the 1973 F1 World Championship, Enzo Ferrari stopped all development of sports cars in prototype and GT racing at the end of the year, in order to concentrate on Formula One.