Having visited Modena, a Mecca for car enthusiasts, a few weeks ago, but having omitted to mention even a single Ferrari motor car, we thought we’d better remedy the situation and today visited the Ferrari Museum (but not the factory as well. Come on, you can have too much of a good thing).
The Ferrari motor company is down to Enzo Ferrari, who was born in Modena in 1898.
A successful racing driver, he started Scuderia Ferrari in 1929 (Scuderia Ferrari means ‘the stable of Ferrari’) to race Alfa Romeos.
It wasn’t until 1947 that Ferrari started manufacturing cars in his own name, not in Modena, where all the work had been done up until this point, but down the road at Maranello.
Only a few cars were sold each year to start with – three in 1947 and five in 1948. Sales figures exceeded 100 for the first time in 1957, and 1000 in 1971. In 2017 over 8000 Ferrari motor cars were sold.
Enzo Ferrari died in 1988, aged 90, having never flown in an aeroplane, never having been to Rome and never having set foot in a lift.
Now, lots of pictures. Hope you like them (especially Mick).
Enzo Ferrari named this car after one of his sons who died from muscular distrophy aged 24.
One of these won the Mille Milglia in 1948.
The Mille Miglia was only run eleven times after the Second World War. Ferrari entered ten of those years and won the race eight times.
A car like this was recently valued at £45 million.
This was one of my favourite models.
This was Mark’s other favourite car.
Thanks to Mark who patiently explained the inner workings of a lot of the cars, and helped me with the words.
Tortoise Travel 
Well done for correcting that omission Anne- a lovely set of pics! Agree with Mark – I think they should ALL be red. Dino 246GT for me. On a different subject- our local Italian-owned Italian restaurant has started serving all red wines chilled! Heresy! Have you come across this? We wondered if it’s just a Naples thing as that’s where they are from. Red is normally served at room temperature, surely?
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Glad you like the photos. Re the red wine – Mark and I are white wine drinkers – the local white here is a lovely sparkling number called Pignoletto . The only time we’ve had red wine recently was at a wine tasting and I’m sure the red wine was at room temperature, but I’ve just googled the subject and they said ideally red wine should be served at between 60 and 70 degrees c so the the best thing is to pop it in the fridge an hour before serving. Think this must be a recent thing.
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I’m a big fan of the Ferrari red color, although I think yellow is also a flattering color for them.
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