Scuderia Ferrari, the most famous and successful team in Formula 1 history—and possibly in all of motorsport—is celebrating its 90th anniversary this year. And to mark the milestone the Ferrari Museum in the marque’s home town of Maranello in Italy has opened a major exhibition called “90 Years”. In it fans can view up close many of Ferrari’s most noteworthy racing cars responsible for some of its most significant successes in F1 and beyond.
Enzo Ferrari founded the revered racing concern in Modena on November 16 1929, initially using using Alfa Romeo cars and first known as Società Anonima Scuderia Ferrari. It quickly shot to prominence on both in Italy and internationally, in races such as the Mille Miglia, Scuderia Ferrari’s very first event in 1930, the Targa Florio, the Trieste-Opicina hillclimb where Tazio Nuvolari gave the marque its first ever win, and famous endurance events like the 24 Hour races at Le Mans, Daytona, Spa as well as the Sebring 12 Hours, and, of course, F1.
The “90 Years” exhibition’s cars on display cover almost the entire range of Scuderia Ferrari’s nine-decade history. It begins with the Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 Spider, which became the very first car to sport the Prancing Horse as part of its livery, at Le Mans in 1932, and the final car of the exhibition is the SF71H in which Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Räikkönen raced in the F1 season just passed.
And a vast range of significant racing cars from between times is present in the exhibition too, including several that took F1 world championships. This includes the Ferrari 500 F2 in which Alberto Ascari won two world titles in 1952 and ’53, the Ferrari D50 that Juan Manuel Fangio drove to the fourth of his five F1 championships in 1956, as well as the Ferrari Dino 246 F1 in which Mike Hawthorn beat Stirling Moss to the 1958 crown by a single point.
There also is the Ferrari 156 F1 which gave John Surtees his first F1 win in 1963, the famous 1975 312 T with its revolutionary transverse gearbox which helped Niki Lauda to win his first F1 title and set Ferrari and Lauda up for mid-1970s’ dominance, and the 312 T4 in which Jody Scheckter took the 1979 title. There also is the Ferrari F2004 in which Michael Schumacher took a crushing 13 wins out of 18 races to take his final F1 title in 2004, as well as the F2007 in which Kimi Räikkönen took Ferrari’s last F1 drivers’ title to date in 2007.
The Ferrari Museum simultaneously is also staging a “Hypercars” exhibition, which pinpoints the Ferrari road cars that signaled major advances in the marque’s technological evolution. The cars therein start off with the 1984 GTO, and the exhibition also includes the famous F40, which was a genuine track car featuring a turbo engine and use of carbon composites, created as Enzo Ferrari’s personal celebration of the company’s 40th birthday.
There also is a 1995 F50, the 2002 Ferrari Enzo as well as the 2013 hybrid-powered 1000bhp LaFerrari. Visitors can also witness the hugely sophisticated Ferrari P80/C design static model, the latest product of the One-Off programme which allows owners to create their own unique version of an existing model. Both exhibitions are running until May 2020.
Images courtesy of Ferrari North Europe
