Ferarri
Ferarri
Ferarri
History[edit]
Main article: History of Ferrari
Early history[edit]
In 1945, Ferrari adopted its current name. Work started promptly on a new V12 engine that would
power the 125 S, which was the marque's first car, and many subsequent Ferraris. The company
saw success in motorsport almost as soon as it began racing: the 125 S won many races in 1947,[15]
[16]
and several early victories, including the 1949 24 Hours of Le Mans and 1951 Carrera
Panamericana, helped build Ferrari's reputation as a high-quality automaker.[17][18] Ferrari won several
more races in the coming years,[8][19] and early in the 1950s its road cars were already a favourite of
the international elite.[20] Ferrari produced many families of interrelated cars, including
the America, Monza, and 250 series, and the company's first series-produced car was the 250 GT
Coupé, beginning in 1958.[21
In 1960, Ferrari was reorganized as a public company. It soon began searching for a business
partner to handle its manufacturing operations: it first approached Ford in 1963, though negotiations
fell through; later talks with Fiat, who bought 50% of Ferrari's shares in 1969, were more successful.
[22][23]
In the second half of the decade, Ferrari also produced two cars that upended its more
traditional models: the 1967 Dino 206 GT, which was its first mass-produced mid-engined road car,
[a]
and the 1968 365 GTB/4, which possessed streamlined styling that modernised Ferrari's design
language.[26][27] The Dino in particular was a decisive movement away from the company's
conservative engineering approach, where every road-going Ferrari featured a V12 engine placed in
the front of the car, and it presaged Ferrari's full embrace of mid-engine architecture, as well
as V6 and V8 engines, in the 1970s and 1980s.[26]
Contemporary[edit]
Enzo Ferrari died in 1988, an event that saw Fiat expand its stake to 90%.[28] The last car that he
personally approved — the F40 — expanded on the flagship supercar approach first tried by the 288
GTO four years earlier.[29] Enzo was replaced in 1991 by Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, under
whose 23-year-long chairmanship the company greatly expanded. Between 1991 and 2014, he
increased the profitability of Ferrari's road cars nearly tenfold, both by increasing the range of cars
offered and through limiting the total number produced. Montezemolo's chairmanship also saw an
expansion in licensing deals, a drastic improvement in Ferrari's Formula One performance (not least
through the hiring of Michael Schumacher and Jean Todt), and the production of three more flagship
cars: the F50, the Enzo, and the LaFerrari. In addition to his leadership of Ferrari, Montezemolo was
also the chairman of Fiat proper between 2004 and 2010.[30]
After Montezemolo resigned, he was replaced in quick succession by many new chairmen and
CEOs. He was succeeded first by Sergio Marchionne,[30] who would oversee Ferrari's initial public
offering and subsequent spin-off from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles,[31][32] and then by Louis Camilleri as
CEO and John Elkann as chairman.[33] Beginning in 2021, Camilleri was replaced as CEO
by Benedetto Vigna, who has announced plans to develop Ferrari's first fully electric model.[34] During
this period, Ferrari has expanded its production, owing to a global increase in wealth, while
becoming more selective with its licensing deals.[35][36