Ferrari N.V. (pronounced [ferˈrari]) is an Italian sports car manufacturer based in Maranello. Founded by Enzo Ferrari in 1939 out of Alfa Romeo's race division as Auto Avio Costruzioni, the company built its first car in 1940. However the company's inception as an auto manufacturer is usually recognized in 1947, when the first Ferrari-badged car was completed.

In 2014, Ferrari was rated the world's most powerful brand by Brand Finance. In May 2012 the 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO became the most expensive car in history, selling in a private transaction for US$38.1 million to American communications magnate Craig McCaw.

Fiat S.p.A. acquired 50 percent of Ferrari in 1969 and expanded its stake to 90 percent in 1988. In October 2014 Fiat Chrysler Automobiles announced its intentions to separate Ferrari S.p.A. from FCA; as of the announcement FCA owned 90 percent of Ferrari. The separation began in October 2015 with a restructuring that established Ferrari N.V. (a company incorporated in the Netherlands) as the new holding company of the Ferrari group and the subsequent sale by FCA of 10 percent of the shares in an IPO and concurrent listing of common shares on the New York Stock Exchange. Through the remaining steps of the separation, FCA's interest in Ferrari's business was distributed to shareholders of FCA, with 10 percent continuing to be owned by Piero Ferrari. The spin-off was completed on 3 January 2016.

Throughout its history, the company has been noted for its continued participation in racing, especially in Formula One, where it is the most successful racing team, holding the most constructors championships (16) and having produced the highest number of winning drivers (15). Ferrari road cars are generally seen as a symbol of speed, luxury and wealth.

Enzo Ferrari was not initially interested in the idea of producing road cars when he formed Scuderia Ferrari in 1929, with headquarters in Modena. Scuderia Ferrari (pronounced [skudeˈriːa]) literally means "Ferrari Stable" and is usually used to mean "Team Ferrari." Ferrari bought, prepared, and fielded Alfa Romeo racing cars for gentleman drivers, functioning as the racing division of Alfa Romeo. In 1933, Alfa Romeo withdrew its in-house racing team and Scuderia Ferrari took over as its works team: the Scuderia received Alfa's Grand Prix cars of the latest specifications and fielded many famous drivers such as Tazio Nuvolari and Achille Varzi. In 1938, Alfa Romeo brought its racing operation again in-house, forming Alfa Corse in Milano and hired Enzo Ferrari as manager of the new racing department; therefore the Scuderia Ferrari was disbanded.

In September 1939, Ferrari left Alfa Romeo under the provision he would not use the Ferrari name in association with races or racing cars for at least four years. A few days later he founded Auto Avio Costruzioni, headquartered in the facilities of the old Scuderia Ferrari. The new company ostensibly produced machine tools and aircraft accessories. In 1940, Ferrari produced a race car – the Tipo 815, based on a Fiat platform. It was the first Ferrari car and debuted at the 1940 Mille Miglia, but due to World War II it saw little competition. In 1943, the Ferrari factory moved to Maranello, where it has remained ever since. The factory was bombed by the Allies and subsequently rebuilt including a works for road car production.

The first Ferrari-badged car was the 1947 125 S, powered by a 1.5 L V12 engine; Enzo Ferrari reluctantly built and sold his automobiles to fund Scuderia Ferrari.

The Scuderia Ferrari name was resurrected to denote the factory racing cars and distinguish them from those fielded by customer teams.

In 1960 the company was restructured as a public corporation under the name SEFAC S.p.A. (Società Esercizio Fabbriche Automobili e Corse).

Early in 1969, Fiat took a 50 percent stake in Ferrari. An immediate result was an increase in available investment funds, and work started at once on a factory extension intended to transfer production from Fiat's Turin plant of the Ferrari engined Fiat Dino. New model investment further up in the Ferrari range also received a boost.

In 1988, Enzo Ferrari oversaw the launch of the Ferrari F40, the last new Ferrari to be launched before his death later that year, and arguably one of the most famous supercars ever made. In 1989 the company was renamed as Ferrari S.p.A. From 2002 to 2004, Ferrari produced the Enzo, their fastest model at the time, which was introduced and named in honor of the company's founder, Enzo Ferrari. It was to be called the F60, continuing on from the F40 and F50, but Ferrari was so pleased with it, they called it the Enzo instead. It was initially offered to loyal and recurring customers, each of the 399 made (minus the 400th which was donated to the Vatican for charity) had a price tag of $650,000 apiece (equivalent to £400,900).

On 15 September 2012, 964 Ferrari cars (worth over $162 million- which is equivalent to £99,950,000) attended the Ferrari Driving Days event at Silverstone Circuit and paraded round the Silverstone Circuit setting a world record.

Ferrari's former CEO and Chairman, Luca di Montezemolo, resigned from the company after 23 years, who was succeeded by Amedeo Felisa and finally on 3 May 2016 Amedeo resigned and was succeeded by Sergio Marchionne, CEO and Chairman of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Ferrari's parent company.

On 29 October 2014, the FCA group, resulting from the merger between manufacturers Fiat and Chrysler, announced the split of its luxury brand, Ferrari. The aim is to turn Ferrari into an independent brand which 10 percent of stake will be sold in an IPO in 2015. Ferrari officially priced its initial public offering at $52 a share after the market close on 20 October 2015.

Since the company's beginnings, Ferrari has been involved in motorsport, competing in a range of categories including Formula One and sports car racing through its Scuderia Ferrari sporting division as well as supplying cars and engines to other teams and for one make race series.

The 1940 AAC 815 was the first racing car to be designed by Enzo Ferrari, although it was not badged as a Ferrari model.

Scuderia Ferrari has participated in several classes of motorsport, though it is currently only officially involved in Formula One. It is the only team to have competed in the Formula One World Championship continuously since its inception in 1950. José Froilán González gave the team its first F1 victory at the 1951 British Grand Prix.

Alberto Ascari gave Ferrari its first Drivers Championship a year later. Ferrari is the oldest team in the championship, and the most successful: the team holds nearly every Formula One record. As of 2014, the team's records include 15 World Drivers Championship titles (1952, 1953, 1956, 1958, 1961, 1964, 1975, 1977, 1979, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2007) 16 World Constructors Championship titles (1961, 1964, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1979, 1982, 1983, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2007 and 2008), 221 Grand Prix victories, 6736.27 points, 679 podium finishes, 207 pole positions, and 230 fastest laps in 890 Grands Prix contested. Of the 19 tracks used in 2014, 8 have lap records set by the Ferrari F2004, with a further 3 set by the Ferrari F2003-GA, Ferrari F2008 and Ferrari F10.

Ferrari drivers include: Tazio Nuvolari, José Froilán González, Juan Manuel Fangio, Alberto Ascari, Luigi Chinetti, Maurice Trintignant, Wolfgang von Trips, Phil Hill, Olivier Gendebien, Mike Hawthorn, Peter Collins, Giancarlo Baghetti, Ricardo Rodríguez, Chris Amon, John Surtees, Lorenzo Bandini, Ludovico Scarfiotti, Jacky Ickx, Mario Andretti, Clay Regazzoni, Niki Lauda, Carlos Reutemann, Jody Scheckter, Gilles Villeneuve, Didier Pironi, Patrick Tambay, René Arnoux, Michele Alboreto, Gerhard Berger, Nigel Mansell, Alain Prost, Jean Alesi, Michael Schumacher, Eddie Irvine, Rubens Barrichello, Felipe Massa, Kimi Räikkönen, Fernando Alonso, and Sebastian Vettel.

At the end of the 2006 season, the team courted controversy by continuing to allow Marlboro to sponsor them after they, along with the other F1 teams, made a promise to end sponsorship deals with tobacco manufacturers. A five-year deal was agreed and although this was not due to end until 2011, in April 2008 Marlboro dropped their on-car branding on Ferrari.

In addition to Formula One, Ferrari also entered cars in sportscar racing, the two programs existing in parallel for many years.

In 1949, Luigi Chinetti drove a 166 M to Ferrari's first win in motorsports, the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Ferrari went on to dominate the early years of the World Sportscar Championship which was created in 1953, winning the title seven out of its first nine years.

When the championship format changed in 1962, Ferrari earned titles in at least one class each year through to 1965 and then again in 1967. Ferrari would win one final title, the 1972 World Championship of Makes before Enzo decided to leave sports car racing after 1973 and allow Scuderia Ferrari to concentrate solely on Formula One.

During Ferrari's seasons of the World Sportscars Championship, they also gained more wins at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, with the factory team earning their first in 1954. Another win would come in 1958, followed by five consecutive wins from 1960 to 1964. Luigi Chinetti's North American Racing Team (NART) would take Ferrari's final victory at Le Mans in 1965.

Although Scuderia Ferrari no longer participated in sports cars after 1973, they have occasionally built various successful sports cars for privateers. These include the BB 512 LM in the 1970s, the 333 SP which won the IMSA GT Championship in the 1990s, and currently the 458 GT2 and GT3 which are currently winning championships in their respective classes.

Throughout its history, Ferrari has supplied racing cars to other entrants, aside from its own works Scuderia Ferrari team.

In the 1950s and '60s, Ferrari supplied Formula One cars to a number of private entrants and other teams. One famous example was Tony Vandervell's team, which raced the Thinwall Special modified Ferraris before building their own Vanwall cars. The North American Racing Team's entries in the final three rounds of the 1969 season were the last occasions on which a team other than Scuderia Ferrari entered a World Championship Grand Prix with a Ferrari car.

Ferrari supplied cars complete with V8 engines for the A1 Grand Prix series, from the 2008-09 season. The car was designed by Rory Byrne and is styled to resemble the 2004 Ferrari Formula one car.

Ferrari currently runs a customer GT program for a racing version of its 458 model, and has done so for the 458's predecessors, dating back to the 355 in the late 1990s. Such private teams as the American Risi Competizione and Italian AF Corse teams have been very successful with Ferrari GT racers over the years. This car, made for endurance sportscar racing to be competed against such racing versions of the Audi R8, McLaren MP4-12C, and BMW Z4 has proven to be successful, but not as successful as its predecessor, the F430. The Ferrari Challenge is a one make racing series for the Ferrari 458. The FXX is not road legal, and is therefore only used for track events.

Ferrari's first vehicle was the 125 S sports/racing model. In 1949, the Ferrari 166 Inter was introduced. The presentation of this car marked the company's first move into the grand touring market, which continues to make up the bulk of Ferrari sales to the present day.

Several early cars featured bodywork customised by a number of coachbuilders such as Pininfarina, Zagato and Bertone.

The Dino was the first mid-engined Ferrari. This layout would go on to be used in most Ferraris of the 1980s and 1990s. V8 Ferrari models make up well over half of the marque's total production.

For a time, Ferrari built 2+2 versions of its mid-engined V8 cars. Although they looked quite different from their 2-seat counterparts, both the GT4 and Mondial were closely related to the 308 GTB.

The company has also produced front-engined 2+2 cars, culminating in the current California.

Ferrari entered the mid-engined 12-cylinder fray with the Berlinetta Boxer in 1973. The later Testarossa remains one of the most famous Ferraris.

The 1984 Ferrari 288 GTO may be considered the first in the line of Ferrari supercars, which extends to the recent LaFerrari model.

Ferrari has produced a number of concept cars, such as the Ferrari Mythos. While some of these were quite radical (such as the Ferrari Modulo) and never intended for production, others such as the Ferrari Mythos have shown styling elements which were later incorporated into production models.

The most recent concept car to be produced by Ferrari themselves was the 2010 Ferrari Millechili.

A number of one-off special versions of Ferrari road cars have also been produced, commissioned to coachbuilders by wealthy owners. Recent examples include the Ferrari P4/5 by Pininfarina and the Ferrari 612 Kappa.

The Special Projects programme was launched in the late 2000s as Ferrari's ultimate in-house personalization service, enabling customers to own bespoke bodied one-offs based on modern Ferrari road cars. Engineering and design is done by Ferrari, sometimes in cooperation with external design houses like Pininfarina or Fioravanti, and the vehicles receive full homologation to be road legal. The first car to be completed under this programme was the 2008 Ferrari SP1, commissioned by a Japanese business executive, the second was the P540 Superfast Aperta, commissioned by an American collector. The following is a list of Special Projects cars that have been made public:

A F430 Spider that runs on ethanol was displayed at the 2008 Detroit Auto Show. At the 2010 Geneva Motor Show, Ferrari unveiled a hybrid version of their flagship 599. Called the "HY-KERS Concept", Ferrari's hybrid system adds more than 100 horsepower on top of the 599 Fiorano's 612 HP. Also in mid-2014, the flagship LaFerrari was put into production.

Until the early 1980s, Ferrari followed a three-number naming scheme based on engine displacement:

Most Ferraris were also given designations referring to their body style. In general, the following conventions were used:

This naming system can be confusing, as some entirely different vehicles used the same engine type and body style. Many Ferraris also had other names affixed (like Daytona) to identify them further. Many such names are actually not official factory names. The Daytona name commemorates Ferrari's triple success in the February 1967 24 Hours of Daytona with the 330 P4. Only in the 1973 Daytona 24 Hours, a 365 GTB/4 model run by NART (who raced Ferrari's in America) ran second, behind a Porsche 911.

The various Dino models were named for Enzo's son, Dino Ferrari, and were marketed as Dinos by Ferrari and sold at Ferrari dealers—for all intents and purposes they are Ferraris.

In the mid-1990s, Ferrari added the letter "F" to the beginning of all models (a practice abandoned after the F512 M and F355, but adopted again with the F430, but not with its successor, the Ferrari 458 ).

The famous symbol of the Ferrari race team is the Cavallino Rampante ("prancing horse") black prancing stallion on a yellow shield, usually with the letters S F (for Scuderia Ferrari), with three stripes of green, white and red (the Italian national colors) at the top. The road cars have a rectangular badge on the hood (see picture at top of page), and, optionally, the shield-shaped race logo on the sides of both front wings, close to the door.

On 17 June 1923, Enzo Ferrari won a race at the Savio track in Ravenna where he met the Countess Paolina, mother of Count Francesco Baracca, an ace of the Italian air force and national hero of World War I, who used to paint a horse on the side of his planes. The Countess asked Enzo to use this horse on his cars, suggesting that it would bring him good luck. The original "prancing horse" on Baracca's airplane was painted in red on a white cloud-like shape, but Ferrari chose to have the horse in black (as it had been painted as a sign of grief on Baracca's squadron planes after the pilot was killed in action) and he added a canary yellow background as this is the color of the city of Modena, his birthplace. The Ferrari horse was, from the very beginning, markedly different from the Baracca horse in most details, the most noticeable being the tail that in the original Baracca version was pointing downward.

Ferrari has used the cavallino rampante on official company stationery since 1929. Since the Spa 24 Hours of 9 July 1932, the cavallino rampante has been used on Alfa Romeos raced by Scuderia Ferrari.

The motif of a prancing horse is old, it can be found on ancient coins. A similar black horse on a yellow shield is the Coat of Arms of the German city of Stuttgart, home of Mercedes-Benz and the design bureau of Porsche, both being main competitors of Alfa and Ferrari in the 1930s. The city's name derives from Stutengarten, an ancient form of the German word Gestüt, which translates into English as stud farm and into Italian as scuderia. Porsche also includes the Stuttgart sign in its corporate logo, centred in the emblem of the state of Württemberg. Stuttgart's Rössle has both rear legs firmly planted on the soil, like Baracca's horse, but unlike Ferrari's cavallino.

Fabio Taglioni used the cavallino rampante on his Ducati motorbikes, as Taglioni was born at Lugo di Romagna like Baracca, and his father too was a military pilot during WWI (although not part of Baracca's squadron, as is sometimes mistakenly reported). As Ferrari's fame grew, Ducati abandoned the horse- perhaps the result of a private agreement between the two companies.

The cavallino rampante is the visual symbol of Ferrari. Cavallino Magazine uses the name, but not the logo. Other companies use similar logos: Avanti, an Austrian company operating over 100 filling stations, uses a prancing horse logo which is nearly identical to Ferrari's, as does Iron Horse Bicycles and Norfolk Southern Railway.

Since the 1920s, Italian race cars of Alfa Romeo, Maserati and later Ferrari and Abarth were (and often still are) painted in "race red" (Rosso Corsa). This was the customary national racing color of Italy, as recommended between the World Wars by the organizations that later would become the FIA. It refers to the nationality of the competing team, not that of the car manufacturer or driver. In that scheme, French-entered cars such as Bugatti were blue, German such as Auto Union and Mercedes white (since 1934 also bare sheet metal silver), and British green such as the mid-1960s Lotus and BRM, for instance.

Ferrari won the 1964 World championship with John Surtees by competing the last two races in North America with cars painted in the US-American race colors white and blue, as these were not entered by the Italian factory themselves, but by the U.S.-based North American Racing Team (NART) team. This was done as a protest concerning arguments between Ferrari and the Italian Racing Authorities regarding the homologation of a new mid-engined Ferrari race car.

In 1963, Enzo Ferrari was approached by the Ford Motor Company about a possible buy out. Ford audited Ferrari's assets but legal negotiations and talks were unilaterally cut off by Ferrari when he realized that the deal offered by Ford would not enable him to stay at the helm of the company racing program. Henry Ford II consequently directed his racing division to negotiate with Lotus, Lola, and Cooper to build a car capable of beating Ferrari on the world endurance circuit, eventually resulting in the production of the Ford GT40 in 1964.

As the Ford deal fell through, FIAT approached Ferrari with a more flexible proposal and purchased controlling interests in the company in 1969. Enzo Ferrari retained a 10 percent share, which is currently owned by his son Piero Lardi Ferrari.

Ferrari has an internally managed merchandising line that licenses many products bearing the Ferrari brand, including eyewear, pens, pencils, electronic goods, perfume, cologne, clothing, high-tech bicycles, watches, cell phones and laptop computers.

Ferrari also runs a museum, the Museo Ferrari in Maranello, which displays road and race cars and other items from the company's history.

Ferrari has had a long-standing relationship with Shell Oil. It is a technical partnership with Ferrari and Ducati to test as well as supply fuel and oils to the Formula One, MotoGP and World Superbike racing teams. For example, the Shell V-Power premium gasoline fuel has been developed with the many years of technical expertise between Shell and Ferrari.

Ferrari have had agreements to supply Formula One engines to a number of other teams over the years, and currently supply Sauber F1 Team, and Haas F1 Team.

As of 2008, the estimated total of Ferrari built and sold cars in whole company history was about 130,000.

Approximately thirty Ferrari boutiques exist worldwide, with two owned by Ferrari and the rest operating as franchises. The stores sell branded clothes, accessories and racing memorabilia. Clothing includes upscale and lower priced collections for men, women, and children.

Some stores include race car simulation games for entertainment.

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