How Ferrari keeps its sexy mystique as the top luxury sports car
Ferrari has a special appeal for car enthusiasts even though fellow Italian marques Alfa Romeo, FIAT, Lancia, Maserati and Bugatti are at least 30 years older
Growing up, any boy’s childhood would be incomplete if he did not have a poster of a shiny red Ferrari in his bedroom. However, the appeal of a Ferrari transcends age – when one of these Italian masterpieces passes on the road, you have to take notice.
Ferrari has never offered a two-seater car in all-wheel drive (AWD) / four-wheel drive (FWD) – unlike Lamborghini and Porsche, every street and racing Ferrari has been rear-wheel drive (RWD). AWD was introduced in the Ferrari FF four-seater and continued onto their GTC/4 Lusso. Ferrari uses sophisticated traction control systems to ensure the level of safety that others typically use AWD for.
Ferrari has never made an SUV. Unlike Lamborghini, Maserati, Porsche and Bentley, who all have made an SUV, Ferrari sticks to its “racing car” raison d’être. Ferrari will not even make a four-door sedan, relegating it to corporate brother Maserati and its Quattroporte/Ghibli.
The Scuderia Ferrari badge you see on Ferrari racing cars and many of the street racing cars represent the “horse stable” (racing team) of Ferrari. What many do not know is that Enzo Ferrari, before establishing the Ferrari S.p.A. in 1947 and racing under that brand, had raced Alfa Romeo cars with this badge. One example of this is the 1935 Alfa Romeo Bimotore.
Ferrari is the only automotive manufacturer to own its own dedicated racetrack for testing. The Pista di Fiorano (“Fiorano” for short), is a 1.86-mile track where each corner is designed specifically to test aspects such as the vehicle’s chassis, braking and roadholding capabilities. The track is used for Formula One and privateer cars, as well as the development of all streetcars.
Whereas many other manufacturers resort to the Nurburgring Nordschleife circuit in Germany for testing and development, Ferrari primarily does its development on this track.
Ferrari’s original mission was to simply build racing cars. The street cars were only there to “finance” the racing division. Over time, the streetcars began to take on their own identity and importance, and eventually became more recognisable than the racing cars. It would be hard for many to reconcile a world without Ferrari street cars now, but Enzo Ferrari supposedly had a disdain for their necessary evil.
Ferrari’s use of race technology in its streetcars gives it a special status. In the old days, this was often merely using racing engines as a platform for streetcar motors, whether it was the vintage V12s or the turbo era F1 cars of the 1980s. A lot of downforce engineering learned in F1 started to be applied in the mid-1990s.