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Enzo Anselmo Giuseppe Maria Ferrari (Italian: [ˈɛntso anˈsɛlmo ferˈraːri]; 18 February 1898 – 14 August 1988) was an Italian motor racing driver and entrepreneur, the founder of the Scuderia Ferrari Grand Prix motor racing team, and subsequently of the Ferrari automobile marque. He was widely known as il Commendatore or il Drake. In his final years he was often referred to as l'Ingegnere ("the Engineer") or il Grande Vecchio ("the Grand Old Man"). Early life Enzo Ferrari was born on 18 February 1898 in Modena, Italy, while his birth certificate states 20 February. His parents were Alfredo Ferrari and Adalgisa Bisbini; he had an older brother Alfredo Junior (Dino). Alfredo Senior was the son of a grocer from Carpi, and began a workshop fabricating metal parts at the family home. Enzo grew up with little formal education. When he was 10 he witnessed Felice Nazzaro's win at the 1908 Circuito di Bologna, an event which inspired him to become a racing driver. During World War I, he served in the 3rd Mountain Artillery Regiment of the Italian Army. His father Alfredo, and his older brother, Alfredo Jr., died in 1916 as a result of a widespread Italian flu outbreak. Ferrari became seriously sick himself during the 1918 flu pandemic and was consequently discharged from the Italian service. Racing career "Second place is the first loser".(Original: "Il secondo è il primo dei perdenti".) After the collapse of his family's carpentry business, Ferrari searched for a job in the car industry. He unsuccessfully volunteered his services to Fiat in Turin, eventually settling for a job as test-driver for CMN (Costruzioni Meccaniche Nazionali), a car manufacturer in Milan which rebuilt used truck bodies into small passenger cars. He was later promoted to race car driver and made his competitive debut in the 1919 Parma-Poggio di Berceto hillclimb race, where he finished fourth in the three-litre category at the wheel of a 2.3-litre 4-cylinder C.M.N. 15/20. On 23 November of the same year, he took part in the Targa Florio but had to retire after his car's fuel tank developed a leak. Due to the large number of retirements, he finished 9th. In 1920, Ferrari joined the racing department of Alfa Romeo as a driver. Ferrari won his first Grand Prix in 1923 in Ravenna on the Savio Circuit. 1924 was his best season, with three wins, including Ravenna, Polesine and the Coppa Acerbo in Pescara. Deeply shocked by the death of Ugo Sivocci in 1923 and Antonio Ascari in 1925, Ferrari, by his admission, continued to race half-heartedly. At the same time, he developed a taste for the organisational aspects of Grand Prix racing. Following the birth of his son Alfredo (Dino) in 1932, Ferrari decided to retire and form a team of superstar drivers, including Giuseppe Campari and Tazio Nuvolari. This team was called Scuderia Ferrari (founded by Enzo in 1929) and acted as a racing division for Alfa Romeo. The team was very successful, thanks to excellent cars like the Alfa Romeo P3 and to the talented drivers, like Nuvolari. Ferrari retired from competitive driving having participated in 41 Grands Prix with a record of 11 wins. During this period, the prancing horse emblem appeared on his team's cars. The emblem had been created and sported by Italian fighter plane pilot Francesco Baracca. During World War I, Baracca's mother gave her son a necklace with the prancing horse on it before takeoff. Baracca was shot down and killed by an Austrian aeroplane in 1918. In memory of his death, Ferrari used the prancing horse to create the emblem that would become the world-famous Ferrari shield. Initially displayed on Ferrari's Alfa Romeo racing car, the shield was first seen on a factory Ferrari in 1947. Building Ferrari Alfa Romeo agreed to partner with Ferrari's racing team until 1933, when financial constraints forced them to withdraw their support – a decision subsequently retracted thanks to the intervention of Pirelli. Despite the quality of the Scuderia drivers, the team struggled to compete with Auto Union and Mercedes. Although the German manufacturers dominated the era, Ferrari's team achieved a notable victory in 1935 when Tazio Nuvolari beat Rudolf Caracciola and Bernd Rosemeyer on their home turf at the German Grand Prix. In 1937 Scuderia Ferrari was dissolved and Ferrari returned to Alfa's racing team, named "Alfa Corse". Alfa Romeo decided to regain full control of its racing division, retaining Ferrari as Sporting Director. After a disagreement with Alfa's managing director Ugo Gobbato, Ferrari left in 1939 and founded Auto-Avio Costruzioni, a company supplying parts to other racing teams. Although a contract clause restricted him from racing or designing cars for four years, Ferrari managed to manufacture two cars for the 1940 Mille Miglia, which were driven by Alberto Ascari and Lotario Rangoni. With the outbreak of World War II, Ferrari's factory was forced to undertake war production for Mussolini's fascist government. Following Allied bombing of the factory, Ferrari relocated from Modena to Maranello. At the end of the war, Ferrari decided to start making cars bearing his name, and founded Ferrari S.p.A. in 1947. Enzo decided to battle the dominating Alfa Romeos and race with his own team. The team's open-wheel debut took place in Turin in 1948 and the first win came later in the year in Lago di Garda. The first major victory came at the 1949 24 Hours of Le Mans, with a Ferrari 166 MM driven by Luigi Chinetti and (Baron Selsdon of Scotland) Peter Mitchell-Thomson. In 1950 Ferrari enrolled in the newly born Drivers World Championship and is the only team to remain continuously present since its introduction. Ferrari won his first world championship Grand Prix with José Froilán González at Silverstone in 1951. Apocryphally, Enzo cried like a baby when his team finally defeated the mighty Alfetta 159. The first championship came in 1952, with Alberto Ascari, a task that was repeated one year later. In 1953 Ferrari made his only attempt at the Indianapolis 500, but the car driven by Ascari crashed on lap 41 of the race. In order to finance his racing endeavors in Formula One as well as in other events such as the Mille Miglia and Le Mans, the company started selling sports cars. Ferrari's decision to continue racing in the Mille Miglia brought the company new victories and greatly increased public recognition. However, increasing speeds, poor roads, and nonexistent crowd protection eventually spelled disaster for both the race and Ferrari. During the 1957 Mille Miglia, near the town of Guidizzolo, a 4.0-litre Ferrari 335 S driven by Alfonso de Portago was traveling at 250 km/h (160 mph) when it blew a tyre and crashed into the roadside crowd, killing de Portago, his co-driver and nine spectators, five of whom were children. In response, Enzo Ferrari and Englebert, the tyre manufacturer, were charged with manslaughter in a lengthy criminal prosecution that was finally dismissed in 1961.... Discover the Maria Gianferrari popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Maria Gianferrari books.