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 most 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 in that 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 are set to be turbocharged as strict consumption and emission regulations will affect the future of engineering. 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.

Paine, Jed

2024-09-11