All you need to know about Ferrari
Born: 1947
Nationality: Italian
There are two sides to Ferrari, racing and road. Enzo Ferrari was first and foremost a racing driver who joined Alfa Romeo as such in 1920, but then became director for the company's racing activities. After Alfa gave up racing in 1929, he took over their workshops and built Alfa cars under the racing team name of Scuderia Ferrari. Alfa bought that operation in 1937, but following a row with the car company's boss, Enzo was fired in 1939 and set up a company to make parts for aircraft engines.
What is generally accepted as the first "real" Ferrari appeared in 1947, and - as today in F1 - it was the car's reliability that underscored its racing successes until the mid-1950s. That first car, Tipo 125, was a V12 of just 1.5-litres capacity. It was a year later, in a 2-litre Tipo 166, that the Ferrari brand was first driven in a Grand Prix, in Monaco. Racing success was also because the company hired the best drivers of the day, Alberto Ascari and Gigi Villoresi.
In the mid-1950s, Mercedes-Benz began to dominate Grand Prix, but Ferrari fought back with drivers whose names are now legend: Juan Fangio, Peter Collins, Mike Hawthorn, Phil Hill and Dan Gurney. Through the 1960s, other high-powered names included John Surtees and Jacky Ickx, while Nicky Lauda and Clay Regazzoni drove the prancing horse in the 1970s. Between Surtees winning the world championship in 1964 and the Nicky Lauda win in 1975, it was a time of mixed racing fortunes for the company. Until the end of the decade, things were better with the help of rising star Gilles Villeneuve and Jody Scheckter, but in 1969 Ferrari sold half the company to Fiat to finance his racing.
The 1980s were generally a disaster, and in 1988 Enzo Ferrari died; Fiat then took complete ownership of the company. From then, through the early 1990s, the brand's racing fortunes were mixed, though development work was gradually making the cars more competitive. In 1996 the company hired Michael Schumacher. The rest of the story is an ongoing triumph in Grand Prix racing.
Enzo Ferrari always said he built road cars to finance his racing passions, and in the early 1950s it took fewer than 50 such cars to maintain his racing interest. Even 20 years later, only 1,000 Ferrari road cars were being produced each year. Today, fewer than 4,000 a year are built, keeping the brand as one of the most exclusive in the world.
Until 1964, every road Ferrari had a front-mounted V12 engine, then a variety of V6s and V8s became available, as did mid-engined configuration. Today, under Fiat, the original front-engined V12 is back in favour.
While the racing cars are renowned for their reliability, Ferrari road cars don't generally have the same reputation. But people buy them for their beauty and badge, not for commuting.
Best Car: Aficionados plump for the beauty of the F355
Worst Car: Often said to be the 308GTSi, which has a poor reputation for its gearbox.
Weirdest Car: The Modulo concept of 1970.