Modern Ferrari Formula 1 Cars

    Ferrari, as you know from the previous posts, is a company that sprung up from racing. To this day Ferrari is still very competetive in the F1 circut as well as in Le Mans, GT1, and GT2 racing. During the early 2000's Ferrari dominated F1 racing with legend Michael Schumacher behind the wheel. Currently, Ferrari is ranked third in the overall F1 rankings, behind Redbull-Renault and Mercedes-McClaren. The current car is unimaginatively named the F2012.

     The current F2012 is one of the most advanced and expensive race cars ever made. Each Ferrari car in the 2003 season costed about $200 million to operate. These costs include construction of the car, driver payment, fuel, transportation (which is huge when Ferrari needs to transport three fragile cars around the world on a weekly basis), and repairs. It also doesn't help that the material that the cars are made from is incredibly expensive. The car, even the transmition, is made of carbon fiber, which is eight times more expensive per pound than steel. Fortunately carbon fiber has, pound for pound, ten times the tensile strength of steel. This means that very small amounts of carbon can be used to achieve the same ridgidity and strength as quite a bit of steel. Carbon fiber is so light in fact that half the weight of the outer shell of the car is stickers and paint.

Below is a video of the unveiling of the 2012 Ferrari F1 car:

Also here is the third Ferrari ever made; the 166 s:

Ferrari Badge

The badge, (which just happens to by my profile picture) the iconic prancing horse or "Cavallino Rampante", originates from WWI. Francesco Baracca was an ace in the Italian Air Force in WWI. He identified himself by painting a red and white horse on the wings of his plane. After his death his mother approached Enzo Ferrari and begged him to draw the symbol of the horse on his car as a token of good luck. As a gesture of respect and mourning, Enzo changed the color of the horse to black. Enzo then placed that on a background of yellow, the color of Modena, his home city. Somewhat controversial is the resembelance between the Ferrari logo and the coat of arms of the German city of Stuttgart, which is the current headquarters of Mercedes-Benz and Porsche. Above is the Ferrari 159 S.

Enzo Ferrari

Born: February 18, 1898 in Modena Italy Enzo Ferrari was the founder of Ferrari S.p.A. Early on he served in the Italian military in an artillery division. After the war he returned home to a failing family business. In order to make some money he turned to a small company that made small cars. He left several years later to work at Alpha Romeo. While there he started a racing division called Scuderia Ferrari. During the Great Depression Alpha could no longer afford to maintain a racing team. Separated from Alpha and now supported by Pirelli (a modern day tire company) Enzo continued to race. After being bombed in WWII, the Ferrari factory relocated from Modena to Maranello. In 1947, Ferrari S.p.A. was born. Initailly focusing on Formula One racing and Le Mans, Ferrari only produced street cars as a means to finance their racing endevours. In the 60's the focus began to shift more towards production cars as a result of numerous racing fatalities. Recently, the company has become more of a brand, focusing on distributing merchandise and publicity. This is most strikingly visible in the new Ferrari theme park that recently opened in Dubai, featuring the fastest roller coaster in the world; the Formula Rossa. Below is a picture of the very first production Ferrari; the 125 S.

FIRST POST!!!!!

Hi,
     My name is Roberto. I would say that Ferrari was part of my childhood. Every summer in Italy I would watch Formula 1 races, always cheering on the red cars in first. For a certain stretch of time Michael Schumacher became my idol. As a small kid I appreciated Ferraris for their speed and price, but as I grew up I began to view Ferraris less as supercars and more as works of automotive art.
     In this blog I will explore the history of Ferrari through its cars. Each blog post from now on will include one Ferrari. I will start by posting cars from the modern era, but each post will be an earlier model. So all I ask is that you sit back and enjoy some gratuitous Ferrari artwork.