5 things you don’t know about Ferrari
By Shenron on Jun 06, 2008 with Comments 1
Few car manufacturer names bring the same amount of excitement to automobile enthusiasts like the name of Ferrari. The Ferrari sports car maker has a well earned reputation of putting out high quality sports cars that maximize the output of incredibly efficient high performance engines. The effect of their efforts results in automobiles that are incomparable to most other sports cars on the market.
Here are five things you may not know about the Ferrari sports car company.
1. In 1929, Enzo Ferrari founded car maker Scuderia Ferrari in his native Italy. The company originally manufactured racing cars and wouldn’t put out its first street legal vehicle until 1947.
2. The famous horse present in the Ferrari logo was taken from the horse that World War I Italian Air Force Ace Count Francesco Baracca painted on the side of his airplanes.
3. The first motorsports win achieved by a Ferrari was the 1949 24 Hours of Le Mans race won by Luigi Chinetti who drove a Ferrari 166M.
4. Ferrari won five consecutive Formula One World Drivers Championship titles from 2000 through 2004.
5. The Ferrari Testarossa is one of the more popular models in the history of the company. The name “Testarossa” translates as “red head” and comes from the flat-12 engines cylinder heads which were painted red.
Driving a Ferrari is a once in a lifetime opportunity for most well-to-do people, normal people most likely will never experience the high performance power of these much sought after vehicles. The Ferraris put out on the market today benefit from over sixty years of technology and fine tuning. There is nothing in the immediate future to indicate that the popularity of the Ferrari will decrease any time soon.
One of the major things that works in Ferrari’s favor is that they don’t try and make a number of different models of cars aimed at different economic levels of people, they do one thing and they do it incredibly well. They make the best sports cars in the world – period.
Further Readings:
Filed Under: General
Scuderia Ferrari raced other manufactures cars, Lancias and Alfa romeos up to WWII. After the war,1947, they produced their first car, the 166M.
The testarossa name came from the 1957 TR, which did have Red cam covers on its V12 engine, not a flat (boxer) 12.
And yes Chinetti did score the first Ferrari car victory at Le mans in ’49,
what is really note worthy is that he drove for 23 hours and 40 minutes straight and only gave up the wheel because a co-driver was mandatory.