Ferraris are best known for their sleek, stunning, and curvaceous design, eye-watering price tag, and standard rosso corsa (race red) paintwork. From the very first Ferrari – the 1947 Tipo 125 S racing sports car – through to the more recent 2013 LaFerrari mild hybrid limited edition road car, Ferrari have continued to astound enthusiasts and critics alike with their evolutionary performance road vehicles and unrivalled Formula 1 racing pedigree.
Yet, motoring history might have been so different – Enzo Ferrari was a reluctant manufacturer. He initially built and sold production vehicles purely to fund his Scuderia Ferrari racing team. For every success on the track, though, came a wave of innovation to be applied to their production cars. The F1 gearbox was one of the most important technological transfers from racing car to grand tourer and was quickly followed by traction control.
The next generation of Ferraris is set to be turbocharged, as strict consumption and emission regulations will affect the future of engineering and there are even electric cars in Ferrari's sights too. The agenda includes more special editions, tailor-made varieties, and one-off models, although their core business will still lie in the GT road car market.
It is a boyhood dream of many youngsters and grown men to own, or at least drive, a Ferrari. Unfortunately, the majority do not go on to achieve this ambition but this book might go some way to filling the void and keeping the dream alive...
