Ferrari S.p.A. is actually an Italian company for manufacturing automobiles. The company is based in Modena and Mranello in Italy. The company was founded by Enzo Ferrari in 1929 with the name Scuderia Ferrari. The company, Ferrari also sponsored many drivers and started manufacturing racing cars. In the year 1947 Ferrari S.p.A. moved to manufacturing street legal vehicles. Throughout its history this company was known for its participation in different kinds of racing, especially in Formula One race. During the years 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1990s, 2000s Ferrari did remarkable results in Formula One Racing. Due to some financial crunch Enzo Ferrari was forced to sell the company’s sports car division out to the Fiat Group in the year 1969 mainly to get financial assistance. Enzo Ferrari still had the control of the racing division of the company till he died in 1988, when he was 90. The internally controlled merchandising line of Ferrari licenses different products under the brand name of Ferrari. Their products even included pens, eyewear, pencils, clothing, perfume, cell phones, high-tech bicycles, computers, laptops, etc. In the 2007 list made for the 100 best workplaces in Europe the name of Ferrari was at number one. Enzo Ferrari never even thought of manufacturing road cars when he set up Scuderia Ferrari in the year 1929 merely as a sponsor for the amateur drivers of Modena. Till 1938 Ferrari manufactured and even made several drivers successful as they were driving Alfa Romeo cars. Enzo Ferrari was hired by Alfa to become the head of the racing department of the company. The 1947 car 125S that was powered by a 1.5 litre V12 engine is considered to be the first Ferrari. Enzo also built and even sold out his automobiles in order to fund the Scuderia. Inspite of the fact that his customers were crazy about the speed and beauty of the Ferrari cars, he himself had a strong distaste for the customers who used to buy the cars by the company merely as a status symbol and not mainly for their performance. The Ferrrari road chars were designed by famous design houses like, Pininfarina. People from the high class gentry often used the road cars of this brand just as a status quo. Scaglietti, Touring, Bertone, Vignale, Ghia, etc. In fact four different universities were given the opportunity to design the next line of vehicles from Ferrari. A contest was held among the students of these universities to design the Ferrari line. Twenty winners were selected from the contest and they were allowed to design Ferrari cars. They also presented their work in front of the board of Ferrari and also got chance to work at Maranello, the Ferrari design studio. According to the statistics of 2007 85% of the shares of Ferrari is owned by the Fiat Group, 5% is owned by Mubadala and 10% is owned by Piero, the son of Enzo. Fiat held back its plans for an IPO, as the Fiat auto project was gradually returning to profitability. To get detailed information about Famous Brands Of Car, have a look at the other pages on the site car-maintenance.ucoz.com.