Ferrari’s top individual shareholders include Exor (the Holding company of the Agnelli Family, also the owner of FIAT Chrysler) with 24% of its shares, Piero Ferrari (son of Enzo Ferrari, the founder of the company), and other institutional investors like BlackRock and T. Rowe Price Associates. Ferrari runs a car luxury business model famous for its iconic models, which in 2019 made over €3.7 billion in revenues ($4.3 billion) in sales.
Ferrari’s top shareholders
Ferrari’s value propositions
Ferrari cars have four core value propositions: sportiness, performance, elegance, comfort & versatility, and anything between that. Perhaps cars like F8, Stradale and Superfast are a combination of performance and sportiness. Roma is instead all about elegance, while the GTC4 Lusso is about elegance and comfort.
Ferrari’s personalization offers
As a car luxury company, Ferrari offers highly customizable interiors and exteriors.
Ferrari’s personalization offers move from “Carrozzeria Scaglietti” to the top-line of customization level, the One-off.
- Ferrari offers a wide catalog of personalizations in the Special Equipment program, from luggage sets to special paints and much more.
- With Tailor-Made personalizations, Ferrari offers a designer that will assist the customer in applying specific customization levels to the car.
- The maximum level of personalization is achieved through the One-Off, with limited edition cars that count a few models globally.
Ferrari’s cars
Ferrari revenue model
Background
Ferrari is an Italian manufacturer of luxury sports vehicles that was founded by Enzo Ferrari in 1939.
Ferrari is a brand that is most often associated with wealth, status, speed, and luxury, and the company itself is the eleventh most valuable in the world with a market capitalization of $47.8 billion.
Below, let’s discover the key moments that immortalized the Ferrari legend.
Enzo Ferrari
Ferrari became interested in cars at the age of 10 after witnessing his first race. After returning from World War I, he tried to find work at the Italian automaker Fiat but was rejected because of an abundance of unemployed ex-servicemen.
Ferrari worked at smaller companies for a while and eventually landed a job at Alfa Romeo as a race car driver in 1924. Ferrari was a skilled and successful driver but later transitioned to become a team manager.
Scuderia Ferrari
Ferrari founded the Scuderia Ferrari racing team in 1929 which, at the time, was part of a division within Alfa Romeo.
The team competed in a variety of events such as the Grand Prix, endurance races, and hill climbs. Scuderia Ferrari rapidly became one of the most successful and well-known racing teams in the world and won multiple championships in the 1930s.
In 1935, Ferrari’s workshop produced its first race car. Known as the Alfa Romeo Bimotore, it featured the emblematic prancing horse logo and was the first step toward Ferrari becoming a fully-fledged car manufacturer.
Three years later, Alfa moved its racing operations in-house. While Ferrari was hired as department manager, the Scuderia Ferrari team as he knew it was no longer. Ferrari left Alfa Romeo in 1939 but would continue to race, design, and build cars under his own name.
Auto Avio Costruzioni
One of the conditions of Ferrari’s departure from Alfa was that he could not use the Ferrari name in association with any of his cars or racing for at least four years. Thus, he founded Auto Avio Costruzioni in the old headquarters of Scuderia Ferrari in Modena.
The company initially made parts for the war effort, but it also produced race cars in the early 1940s. The first, known as the 815, was based on a Fiat platform and featured 8 cylinders and a 1500-cc engine. However, it achieved only modest success on the race track.
In 1943, operations were moved to Maranello where the company has remained ever since. The factory was rebuilt twice after Allied raids in 1944 and 1945, and after the war ended, Ferrari commissioned Gioacchino Colombo to design a new V12 engine.
Ferrari 125 S
Released in 1947 and featuring a 1.5-liter V12 engine, the Ferrari 125 S was the first car to carry the Ferrari name. The Ferrari Scuderia team was re-established, and the company was victorious at the 1948 Mille Miglia and the 1951 Formula 1 Grand Prix, among other races.
Around this time, Ferrari race car driver Luigi Chinetti approached Ferrari about the prospect of selling a sports car to the general public. Ferrari was hesitant at first, but eventually permitted Chinetti to establish a dealership in New York City.
The move was critical to the early success of Ferrari since the United States is its most lucrative market today.
But, perhaps more importantly, the opening of the first Ferrari showroom marked the point at which everyday enthusiasts (albeit wealthy ones) could drive one of the company’s cars without having to race it.
The great walkout
Ferrari was known for his authoritarian leadership style which, in most respects, permeated the entire company.
Those who did not agree with his direction were either fired or resigned from the company, and some, such as former employee and Lamborghini founder Ferruccio Lamborghini, did just that.
Enzo’s stubbornness almost cost him his company on several occasions, but it was the so-called “Great Ferrari Walkout” of 1961 where he came the closest.
Friction between Ferrari and his subordinates had been building for years, with the involvement of Ferrari’s wife Laura in company affairs believed to be at the heart of the issue.
Sales manager Girolamo Gardini took particular offense to Laura’s increased presence and threatened to leave if she wasn’t removed. True to form, Ferrari fired Gardini who, while not vital to the company, would be missed.
But it was a key cohort of Gardini supporters that would hurt Ferrari and his company the most. These included chief engineer Carlo Chiti, sports car development chief Giotto Bizzarrini, Scuderia Ferrari manager Romolo Tavoni, and five others.
Whether this cohort was sacked or left of their own accord is unclear, but what is clear is that each parted ways with the company in October 1961 and left several projects in limbo.
Driver deaths and the battle with Ford
The exodus left Ferrari without multiple critical personnel and, to exacerbate matters came at a difficult time for the company.
Its motorsport division had suffered reputational damage after several driver and spectator deaths in the late 1950s, with one magazine even writing that Ferrari “was built on dead men.” Ferrari’s pain was compounded when he lost his eldest son Dino to muscular dystrophy in 1956.
This tumultuous period in Ferrari’s history peaked when it was humiliated by Ford at the 1966 Le Mans race.
Henry Ford II had attempted to acquire Ferrari three years earlier and, after Enzo backed out of the deal and sold a majority stake to Fiat instead, a bitter feud ensued between the men that would last almost a decade.
Out of pride or vengeance, Ford spent $25 million engineering a vehicle that would beat Ferrari in the world’s most prestigious car race.
The company’s GT40 had some early teething problems but placed first, second, and third at the 1966 race while no Ferrari was able to finish.
Restructuring and ownership
Ferrari became a public corporation in 1960 and when Fiat took a 50% stake in 1969, the company was able to extend its factory and invest in new models. Enzo saw the deal as essential to Ferrari’s long-term viability.
When Ferrari passed away in 1988 at the age of 90, Luca di Montezemolo became President and transformed Ferrari into a global luxury brand. After Enzo’s death, Fiat increased its stake to 90% where it more or less remained for 25 years.
However, in 2015, Fiat restructured Ferrari as an independent company and it became known as Ferrari N.V. This was followed by an IPO on the New York Stock Exchange in October.
Ferrari today
Today, many Ferraris sell for hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of dollars and the company has remained true to its racing heritage. The brand has a loyal and passionate customer base with even some Ferrari merchandise extremely popular and sought after.
Emblematic of all Ferraris is the prancing horse logo and vibrant red color, a throwback to the early years when Ferrari itself was a racing company and regulation required all vehicles to be painted red.
This requirement ceased in the 1960s, and while Ferraris are now available in other colors, rosso corsa (racing red) remains central to the brand today.
Key takeaways:
- Ferrari is an Italian manufacturer of luxury sports vehicles that was founded by Enzo Ferrari in 1939. Ferrari is a brand that is associated with wealth, status, speed, and luxury, and the company itself is the eleventh most valuable in the world with a market capitalization of $47.8 billion.
- Enzo Ferrari founded the Scuderia Ferrari racing team in 1929 which, at the time, was part of a division within Alfa Romeo. When Ferrari left Alfa in 1939, he founded Auto Avio Costruzioni because he was not able to associate his name with vehicles or motorsport for at least four years.
- Released in 1947, the first vehicle to bear the Ferrari name was the 125 S. Later, race car driver Luigi Chinetti approached Ferrari about the prospect of selling a sports car for the general public. Ferrari became a public corporation in 1960 and was majority owned by Fiat for decades before it was made an independent company in 2015.
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