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Scuderia Ferrari began as dealer marketing
A Driver Too Careful
As a driver, Enzo had the talent and the skill but not the one thing that separates champions from everyone else: he was too afraid to die to push himself and the car to the limit. Two senior Alfa Romeo drivers took him under their wing and both died at the wheel in races. Enzo was the first to reach the first of them, and the man died in Enzo's arms.
The Dealership
His coach-building business went bankrupt within two years, and in 1924 he quit racing and opened an Alfa Romeo dealership in Modena. The next year, Alfa Romeo's board decided to cut back drastically on racing. That threatened the publicity that brought buyers into his showroom.
The Proposal
Enzo went to Alfa headquarters in Milan with a proposal. Alfa could bless its dealer as its official racing agent, and he would put together a private team for the races Alfa did not want to run, hiring the drivers and the mechanics and covering the costs himself.
He named the team Scuderia Ferrari, Scuderia meaning stable in Italian. The SF on the Ferrari shield today stands for it.
How did Scuderia Ferrari end up running Alfa's racing?
In 1933, Alfa Romeo was in financial trouble and withdrew from running its own racing effort. Scuderia Ferrari took over, preparing and entering Alfa Romeo cars with factory support. Alfa brought racing back under its own control in 1938.
Which famous win did Scuderia Ferrari score?
In 1935, Tazio Nuvolari won the German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring in a Scuderia Ferrari Alfa Romeo P3. He beat faster cars from Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union, the dominant German teams of the era. The car was an older design than its rivals.
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