Ferrari was created by Enzo Ferrari, a former Alfa Romeo racing driver from Modena. He first founded the racing team Scuderia Ferrari. In 1947, the first car bearing his name, the Ferrari 125 S, rolled out of the gates of his factory in Maranello, with Enzo himself at the wheel. Below we tell what stood behind this triumph: a refusal from Fiat, the black horse of a fallen pilot, and two sons, one of whom the world did not know about for a long time.

Enzo Ferrari in dark sunglasses and the first red Ferrari 125 S, cover of the episode “The Man Behind the Marque”

In this story:

Who created Ferrari and why he was called the Commendatore

Enzo Ferrari, founder of Ferrari, in dark sunglasses at the desk of his office in Modena
Enzo wore dark glasses even in his office. They became as much a part of the legend as the red color of his cars.

Maranello, the fifties. Red cars win almost everything there is to win. And the man whose name is written on their hoods hardly ever goes to the races.

Enzo Ferrari, whom Italy called Il Commendatore, the Commander, sits in a dark office waiting for a phone call. He loves racing more than people. Drivers, they say, he loves less than their engines. And only one person did he love more than racing. We will come back to that person.

We told this story in 3 minutes. Watch how the most famous red brand in the world grew out of a rejection at the Fiat factory.

Ferrari founder Enzo Ferrari at night by the telephone, waiting for news from the racetrack
For years the Commendatore learned his cars' results by telephone. He was rarely seen at the track.

How Enzo Ferrari began: the Fiat rejection and a bench in Valentino Park

The winter after the First World War. Illness takes Enzo's father and older brother. He himself barely survives. He is in his early twenties, with the army behind him and no connections.

Young Enzo Ferrari in a greatcoat holding a letter at the gates of the Fiat factory in snowy Turin
Turin, snow, a letter in hand. At Fiat the young veteran was told briefly: there is no work for everyone.

He travels to Turin, to the Fiat factory, and hears that there is no work here for every veteran. As Enzo recalled later, he went to Valentino Park, brushed the snow off a bench, sat down, and cried.

Enzo Ferrari sitting alone on a bench in snowy Valentino Park in Turin
Enzo described this scene himself in his memoirs. It was here, by his own account, that fear turned into stubbornness.

That was when, if we believe his account, fear first turned into anger. If they won't take him, he will build it himself. It sounds like a nice phrase for a memoir, but that is exactly what he went on to do, step by step, for more than sixty years.

Why a black horse prances on the Ferrari logo

Enzo becomes a driver for Alfa Romeo. Not the fastest on the team, but the most stubborn. He wins several notable races, but his real talent is different: he knows how to gather people, money, and cars around himself.

Young Enzo Ferrari at the wheel of a red Alfa Romeo at a race in Sicily
Dust, stone walls, spectators right on the fences. This is what the races where Enzo made his name looked like.

Ten years after that bench in the park, he founds his own racing team, Scuderia Ferrari. It enters Alfa Romeo cars in races, and a symbol that everyone recognizes today appears on its shield: a black horse rearing on its hind legs.

Fact. The prancing horse belonged to Francesco Baracca, the most successful Italian flying ace of the First World War, who was killed in combat. The pilot's mother, Countess Paolina Baracca, advised Enzo to paint the horse on his cars for good luck. The yellow background of the shield was added by Enzo himself: it is the color of his native Modena.

Eventually Enzo quarrels with Alfa Romeo's management and leaves. Under the terms of the parting, for several years he has no right to enter racing cars under his own name. The first car he built on his own was called the AAC 815, without the word Ferrari. Enzo waits. As if afraid the world will manage to forget him.

When the first Ferrari appeared

Spring of 1947, Maranello. A small red spider rolls out of the gates of the new factory. For the first time it carries the name Ferrari, and Enzo himself sits at the wheel. Mechanics wave their caps.

The first Ferrari 125 S rolls out of the gates of the Maranello factory, with Enzo Ferrari at the wheel
The first outing of the Ferrari 125 S. A few weeks later this car would win the Rome Grand Prix.

The Ferrari 125 S was tiny: a narrow cigar-shaped body, separate fenders over wire-spoked wheels, a low windshield. But under the long hood hid the main thing, the V12 engine, which for Enzo was the point of the whole enterprise. He said he sold cars to have money for racing, and there was no exaggeration in that.

Car data sheet

Parameter Value
Model Ferrari 125 S
Year 1947
Engine V12, about 1.5 L (designer Gioachino Colombo)
Power about 118 hp
Built 2 units
First win Rome Grand Prix, May 1947 (Franco Cortese)

Why the first Ferrari is called 125

The number in the name is not a serial number. It is the displacement of a single cylinder in cubic centimeters: multiply 125 by twelve cylinders and you get roughly a liter and a half. Ferrari used this naming logic for many years afterward.

Who Dino Ferrari was and why the Dino models are named after him

It seems like the peak. Beside Enzo is his son Alfredo, whom everyone calls Dino. A quiet boy who dreams of engines just as his father did in his youth. Enzo sees in him an heir.

Enzo Ferrari and his son Dino bent over an engine drawing in the design office
His father saw in Dino the one who would carry on the work. The son took engineering seriously, not out of duty.

But Dino has an incurable illness, muscular dystrophy. According to accounts, his father wrote down in a notebook every day what his son ate and what his temperature was. As if numbers could save him, the way they save an engine on a test bench. They cannot.

Enzo Ferrari at night by a lamp, writing his sick son Dino's condition in a notebook
A man accustomed to controlling everything through figures and telemetry was powerless here.

Dino dies at twenty-four, nine years after the first Ferrari rolled out. Enzo withdraws into himself. After this he almost stops going to the races.

Enzo Ferrari lays his hand on the new six-cylinder Dino engine in the Ferrari workshop
The new V6 was given his son's name. The mechanics in the workshop stand silent, caps in their hands.

The new six-cylinder engine, on whose concept Dino himself had worked, received his name. Later the cars began to be called that too: first race cars, and eventually road cars.

Fact. Mike Hawthorn became Formula 1 world champion at the wheel of a Ferrari Dino 246, two years after Dino's death. And the road-going Dino 206 and 246 GT were at first sold under a separate Dino brand, without the horse on the hood.
DEIMAN Carbon Series activated carbon cabin filter next to the first Ferrari 125 S in the Maranello workshop

The first 125 S was open: Maranello's dust and the hot smell of the engine flew straight into the driver's face. Today the cabin is closed, but road dust and the exhaust of neighboring cars still look for a way inside, through the ventilation.

This path is blocked by the Carbon Series cabin filter with activated carbon: it traps dust and absorbs odors so that there is something to breathe in the cabin. Filters of the series are already available for cars of the Fiat group.

Carbon Series for Fiat: DCF2072

Find the right DEIMAN filter for your car →

Who Piero Ferrari is: the Commendatore's secret son

But Enzo had a secret. Two years before the first car, in another house near Modena, another son was born, Piero. His mother, Lina Lardi, was Enzo's beloved.

Lina Lardi with little Piero Ferrari in a garden near Modena, a dark car behind the fence
A red tin toy car in the hands of a boy who for years could not be called Ferrari.

Divorce was banned in Italy then, and the boy lived for years under his mother's surname. Only after the death of Enzo's wife, Laura, did his father recognize Piero officially, and he took the surname Ferrari.

What happened to Ferrari next and who owns it today

In the late sixties Enzo sold half of the company to Fiat, owned by the Agnelli family. He kept for himself what he loved, the racing division and the right to decide at the track. After his death Fiat raised its stake to 90 percent, and the Ferrari family's control over the brand ended.

Elderly Enzo Ferrari at the Fiorano track watching a red race car, with grown-up Piero beside him
Fiorano, Ferrari's private track. The old Commendatore and the son he acknowledged so late.

The Commendatore himself died at ninety. Today Ferrari is traded on the stock exchange, and its largest shareholder is the Agnelli family. The second shareholder, with about ten percent, is that same secret son: Piero Ferrari, the company's vice chairman. And the racetrack in Imola bears the names of the father and the first son: Enzo and Dino Ferrari.

Fact. The track in Imola was first named after Dino alone. Enzo's name was added only after the Commendatore's death, and now on the sign father and son stand side by side, as they once did over an engine drawing.

Timeline

Year Event
1898 Enzo Ferrari is born in Modena
1919 Rejection at the Fiat factory in Turin
1929 Founding of Scuderia Ferrari
1939 Enzo leaves Alfa Romeo
1947 The first Ferrari 125 S rolls out of the gates of the Maranello factory
1956 Death of his son Dino
1969 Fiat buys 50% of Ferrari
1988 Enzo Ferrari dies at the age of 90
Elderly Enzo Ferrari at night in his office, a photo of Dino on the desk, the factory lights outside the window
The circle closes: the office, the dark glasses, and his son's photo on the desk.

The world sees red cars, trophies, and triumph in Maranello. But behind the dark glasses sat a man who began with tears on a snowy bench, buried his heir son, and for decades hid a second one. Ferrari was indeed created by Enzo Ferrari, but the price of this legend was far higher than it looks from the grandstand.

In the next episode of “Birth of Automotive Legends” we will tell another story of a man who gave a brand his name. And what do you think: did Enzo build Ferrari out of love for racing, or to prove that Fiat was wrong not to hire him back then?

The whole story in comic form

9 pages · Swipe sideways →

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Frequently Asked Questions

Who created Ferrari?

Ferrari was created by Enzo Ferrari (1898–1988), a former Alfa Romeo racing driver from Modena. In 1929 he founded the racing team Scuderia Ferrari, which competed in Alfa Romeo cars. After leaving Alfa Romeo he built his own factory in Maranello, and in 1947 the first car bearing his name, the Ferrari 125 S, rolled out of it.

What was the first Ferrari?

The first car under the Ferrari brand was the 1947 Ferrari 125 S. It was an open two-seat racing spider with a V12 engine of about 1.5 liters, designed by Gioachino Colombo. Two units were built. Already in May 1947, Franco Cortese took it to its first victory at the Rome Grand Prix.

Why is the Ferrari 125 S called 125?

The number 125 means the displacement of a single cylinder in cubic centimeters. The V12 engine has twelve cylinders, so the total displacement comes to about 1,500 cc, that is, a liter and a half. Ferrari used the same naming principle for later models, for example the 166 and 250.

Why is there a horse on the Ferrari logo?

The black rearing horse was the personal emblem of Francesco Baracca, an Italian flying ace of the First World War. After his death, the pilot's mother, Countess Paolina Baracca, advised Enzo Ferrari to use the horse on his cars for good luck. Enzo added the yellow background, the color of his native Modena, and the symbol became the emblem of Scuderia Ferrari.

Why was Enzo Ferrari called the Commendatore?

Commendatore, or Commander, is an honorary state title that Enzo Ferrari received in Italy back in the 1920s. Later the nickname stuck to him in the press and among drivers. Enzo himself, according to contemporaries, was cool toward the title and valued more the title of engineer, awarded to him as an honorary one.

What did Enzo Ferrari's son Dino die of?

Alfredo, known as Dino, died in 1956 at the age of 24 from muscular dystrophy, an incurable hereditary disease. For Enzo it became the greatest tragedy of his life: after his son's death he almost stopped going to the races. The new V6 engine and the Dino series of cars were named in Dino's honor.

Why are some Ferrari models called Dino?

The name Dino honors Enzo Ferrari's son, Alfredo Dino Ferrari, who contributed to the idea of the six-cylinder engine and died in 1956. At first the name was given to race cars with the V6 engine, including the Dino 246, in which Mike Hawthorn became world champion in 1958. Then the road-going Dino 206 and 246 GT appeared.

Who is Piero Ferrari?

Piero Ferrari, born in 1945, is the illegitimate son of Enzo Ferrari and Lina Lardi. Because of Italy's ban on divorce, he long bore his mother's surname, and his father recognized him officially only after the death of his wife Laura in 1978. Today Piero is vice chairman of Ferrari and owns about ten percent of the company.

Who owns Ferrari now?

Ferrari is a public company, and its shares have been traded on the stock exchange since 2015. The largest shareholder is the Agnelli family through the holding company Exor. The second-largest shareholder is Piero Ferrari, the founder's son, with a stake of about ten percent. The Ferrari family's control ended back in 1969, when Enzo sold half of the company to Fiat.

Why is the track in Imola named after Enzo and Dino Ferrari?

The Imola racetrack was first named after Dino Ferrari, Enzo's son, who died in 1956. After Enzo Ferrari's own death in 1988, his name was added to the title as well. Now the track is officially called Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari and honors father and son together.