Ferrari

It's now more than a decade since the Chief Mechanic flipped the ignition switch to finally still the indomitable personality that was Enzo Ferrari, time enough for the world to begin to forget lesser mortals.

But Ferrari's name lives on, and the legend, the magic the automotive creations that bear his prancing horse emblem continues to be enlarged: by the 18,000 rpm shriek of the blood-red Formula One racers that still bear his standard; by the deeper, less demented howl of the four, eight and V12 engines that have powered Ferrari sports racers down through the years, and still do; and the more muted snarl they are allowed to make on the world's boulevards, where a Ferrari remains the ultimate fashion accessory.

Many have waxed lyrical about the sound of Ferrari's 12-cylinder engines in the years since the first car to bear the Commendatore's name appeared in 1947. In the racing engines, it's a harsh, ripping sound that winds up like a howling valkyrie's war cry.

The road car's mufflers take the edge off - a bit like using a mute in a trumpet while playing some hot jazz licks - but this does allow you to hear the background track, a mechanical accompaniment played by cams, valves, gears and pistons.

How they sounded was important to Ferrari. To him, his engines were the most important part of his cars. And his cars were the most important things in this haughty, imperious, often tyrannical, sometimes vengeful man's life. His racing cars, that is.

Enzo Ferrari lived to build and race cars. The street cars that bore his name were merely a means to an end, a way of canvassing the wealthy for funds to back his racing activities. Brock Yates, in his book Enzo Ferrari: The Man, the Cars, the Races, the Machine says the ever-cynical Ferrari divided his customers into three categories. The "gentlemen sportsman" who is convinced he knows how to handle a car almost as well as a racing driver; the "fifty-year-olds" who are "making a dream come true" and trying to "snatch back a little of their youth;" and "the exhibitionist" who "buys a Ferrari merely because it is, as it were, the chinchilla among automobiles." Profit margins, at least on earlier generations of Ferrari automobiles, have been estimated at more than 100 percent.

This passion for racing, so all consuming, began early for Ferrari. The boy who would become the Commendatore became entranced by the sport at the early age of 10, while attending an event with his father, himself one of Italy's first car enthusiasts, in 1908. Like most boys smitten by the racing bug, his first ambition was to become a driver. And it turned out he was good enough at the wheel to enjoy no little success. At the controls of various Alfa Romeo racing cars, he managed to put a number of cups on the mantle between 1921 and 1931.

He also acquired, during this period, the symbol that has become arguably the most coveted car badge in the world - the black prancing horse on its yellow background. The Cavallino Rampante had been the calling card of Italian fighter ace Francesco Baracca. After he was finally shot down and killed himself, the war hero's mother, Contessa Paolina Baracca urged Ferrari to paint her son's black horse on his cars, perhaps recognizing in him a similar force to that which had driven her son to great feats. Ferrari added the yellow background, which was the city colour of his home base Modena, some time later.

Ferrari turned out to be a good driver, and if he'd kept to it, may have emerged as one of the greats from that era of larger than life auto racing heroes - but as the decade closed Ferrari turned his talents to the administrative side of racing.

In 1929, he created Scuderia Ferrari to take over Alfa Romeo's racing program, which the factory found was taking too much time, money and talent from its real business - making cars, not racing them. Ferrari successfully guided Alfa's racing efforts up until just before World War II, when he left following a dispute and the creation of a new factory-based team, Alfa Corse.

Ferrari's own first racing cars were built in 1939, based on Fiat components and called simply 815s. When he left Alfa, he had agreed not to use his own name on a car for a four year period. Their first major appearance was at the shortened, war-shadowed, 1940 Mille Miglia; an open road race usually held over 1,000 miles of twisting Italian roads.

The first car to actually carry the Ferrari name wasn't built until 1947, the 12-cylinder Type 125 - a diminutive and ultra-light 650 kg sports racer with a top speed of just under 160 km/h. The engine was created by Gioachino Colombo - an engineer who had worked with Ferrari at Alfa and brought to reality after his abrupt departure by Giuseppe Busso and later Aurelio Lampredi, whose name has also become synonymous with Ferrari engines.

The design brought together a number of existing design features in an exquisite miniature alloy package (it had a displacement of just 1500cc) held together with myriad little nuts and bolts. The one that powered the 125 prototype produced just 65 hp, although this was soon upped to 115 hp. The car was simple underneath, with independent front suspension and a solid axle at the rear (just like a modern pickup truck), and was clad in equally simple, but attractive, two-seater bodywork.

Their first appearance was in a minor event held at Piacenza, and after two years of intense effort creating the cars, Ferrari himself didn't show up at the track to see them race. A 125S was leading the event when its fuel pump failed.

The prancing horse badge had found a permanent home, and soon came to symbolize a growing legend. What followed was a line of Formula One, sports racing and street cars that won races and championships by the score, and continue to do so today.

Enzo Anselmo Ferrari died in August of 1988. Although he had ceded control of much of his company to Fiat, he had struggled to retain control of his racing stable, his Scuderia, and did so until near the end.

How great had the Ferrari legend become? Well, even Pope John Paul II made a pilgrimage to Maranello to meet him shortly before his death, doing a lap of honour around the Fiorano test track in a Mondial cabriolet. Ferrari, of course, never spoke with him, standing him up as he had so many wealthy and important clients over the years. Perhaps, this time, not on purpose.

Ferrari may be gone, but his cars, his passion and, most importantly to him, his name lives on.