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Enzo's son was legally invisible
Dino and the Dynasty
Enzo's legitimate son, Dino, was his heir. Enzo spent Dino's whole life keeping him away from race cars and from the drivers, and Dino died in 1956 at age 24 of muscular dystrophy. After that, Enzo stopped going to races, and he believed both his family line and his company had ended with his son.
Piero's Secret
Enzo had a second son, Piero, from an affair with a woman named Lina Lardi. Italian law at the time treated illegitimate children as if they did not exist, and divorce was not legal until the 1970s, so Piero could not take the Ferrari name or be an heir.
Piero worked at Ferrari as an employee while his parentage stayed a secret everyone inside the company knew. When Enzo sold half of the company to Fiat in 1969, the secret agreement for the day Enzo died gave Fiat another 40 percent and set aside the last 10 percent for Piero.
Italy changed enough over the following years that Piero took over as Piero Ferrari, son of Enzo. He sits on the Ferrari board today and owns 10 percent of the company.
How did Italy's rules on children change?
Italian family law was long built around marriage, and the 1929 Lateran Pacts gave church marriages civil effect, which reinforced that structure. A major family law reform in 1975 improved the rights of children born outside marriage. Further laws in 2012 and 2013 removed the remaining legal distinctions between children born in and out of wedlock.
Why was divorce illegal in Italy until the 1970s?
Marriage in Italy was shaped for decades by the Catholic Church's influence on family law. Parliament passed a divorce law in December 1970. Opponents forced a referendum to repeal it in 1974, and about 59 percent of voters chose to keep it.
Why did Dino's name appear on Ferrari cars?
Ferrari named a family of V6 engines after Enzo's son Dino, who had died in 1956. The name later went onto road cars, including the Dino 206 GT, which arrived in 1967, and the 246 GT, built from 1969 to 1974. Those cars were sold under the Dino name rather than the Ferrari badge.
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