50 Years of Ferrari

A question. What does ‘Ferrari’ mean to you? We presumed the answer to be simple until we started thinking about it and asking around. We learned that Ferrari is neither merely car nor man. To some it embodies the spirit of a nation, to others it is the key to a unique feeling. All you can say for sure about Ferrari is that no two people feel the same about it. Turn to page 74, read the words of, among others, Nigel Mansell and Stirling Moss and you will see what we mean.

It is in an attempt to provide our own answer to the question that we have produced the following 36 pages. We decided to steer clear of the predictable: If you were hoping to see another 250GTO eulogy, we will disappoint you. If, however, you’d like a lingering flavour of those elements which, over the past fifty years, have made up this incomparable marque, from the sports, F1 and road cars to the man himself and those who drove for him, we feel we may have something for you.

Ferrari is an enigma, a subject that’s as easy to appreciate as it is difficult to understand. In five hundred years, our descendants will look at the marque and wonder why it was different in the same way Shakespeare and Mozart seem different to us now. And they will wonder, too, whether those who were around in Ferrari’s heyday realised how lucky they were. And the truth is, we haven’t got a clue.