RED AND THE PASSION FOR SPEED
“Enzo Ferrari’s passion for speed began at Alfa Romeo.
It was the beginning of the emblem with
the ‘cavallino rampante’, or prancing horse.”
ENZO FERRARI AND
THE ALFA ROMEO 6C 1500
“RACE CARS ARE NEITHER BEAUTIFUL NOR UGLY. THEY BECOME BEAUTIFUL WHEN THEY WIN”
ENZO FERRARI
Enzo Ferrari
After his many successes as a driver in mainly local races, Enzo Ferrari founded the Scuderia Ferrari in Modena in 1929. Enzo decided to stop racing as early as 1932, after his son Alfredo was born. Only after the Second World War did Enzo release the first car under the Ferrari brand name in 1947. After the tragic death of his son Alfredino in 1956, the V6 engine he developed was named Dino in his honour. Enzo remained general manager of Ferrari until 1971. In 2002, 15 years after his death, Ferrari’s top model was named as a tribute: the Ferrari Enzo.
Scuderia Ferrari
In 1929 Enzo Ferrari established the racing team Scuderia Ferrari. This team initially functioned as a satellite team of Alfa Romeo. The team had successes with cars such as the Alfa Romeo P3. In 1937 Scuderia Ferrari briefly merged with Alfa Corse and in 1939 Ferrari started developing its own racing cars. In 1950, the Scuderia Ferrari competed against Alfa Romeo in Formula 1. And with success, because to this day Ferrari is the most successful team in Formula 1 history.
Alfa Corse
The extremely lightweight and fast Alfa Romeo Tipo 6C sports cars, designed by the brilliant constructor Vittorio Jano, were vunrivalled in their class at the end of the 1920s. At that time, the eight-cylinder Alfa Romeo P2 dominated the Grands Prix and on that basis Jano manufactured a smaller, lighter car, the six-cylinder 6C 1500. In 1927, Enzo Ferrari, then a works driver with the Alfa Romeo racing stable Alfa Corse, won the debut race of the 6C 1500 at Modena.
Ferrari achieved an average speed of 107.6 km/h over a distance of 360
kilometres.
Alfa Romeo 6C 1500
1,059 units of the Alfa Romeo 6C 1500 were produced. Only ten of these were Super Sport models with a shortened chassis and a Roots compressor. The example in the museum is one of these rare Super Sports with compressor. The car was owned by a London-based racing driver, Edgar Fronteras, who took twelfth place in the ‘Double Twelve’ at the Brooklands circuit in May 1929.