Ferrari

Ferrari N.V.
Type	Public
Traded as	NYSE: RACE; Borsa Italiana: RACE
Industry	Automotive, luxury goods
Founded	1939 as Auto Avio Costruzioni; Ferrari marque from 1947
Founder	Enzo Ferrari
Headquarters	Maranello, Italy
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	John Elkann (chairman), Benedetto Vigna (chief executive), Piero Ferrari (vice chairman)
Products	Sports cars, grand tourers, racing cars, engines
Revenue	Approximately €6.7 billion (2024)
Employees	Approximately 5,500
Website	ferrari.com

Ferrari N.V. is an Italian luxury sports car manufacturer headquartered in Maranello, Emilia-Romagna. Founded by Enzo Ferrari in 1939 as Auto Avio Costruzioni and building its first car under its own name in 1947, it has produced road cars, racing cars and engines continuously since, and its Scuderia Ferrari racing team is the oldest and most successful in the history of Formula One, the only constructor to have competed in every season since the world championship began in 1950.

Ferrari is among the strongest brands in the world and the most valuable automotive company by market capitalisation relative to volume, trading at a valuation that reflects the economics of a luxury goods business rather than a manufacturer. It produces fewer than 14,000 cars a year, deliberately restricts supply below demand, and its shares have traded at multiples comparable to those of LVMH and Hermès rather than to those of other carmakers.

The company was separated from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles in a listing on the New York Stock Exchange in October 2015 and a full demerger in January 2016. Its largest shareholders are Exor, the holding company of the Agnelli family, and Piero Ferrari, the founder's surviving son.

History

Enzo Ferrari and Scuderia Ferrari, 1929 to 1947

Enzo Ferrari was born in Modena in 1898 and worked as a racing driver for Alfa Romeo from 1920. In 1929 he founded Scuderia Ferrari in Modena, initially as a club and preparation service for wealthy amateur drivers racing Alfa Romeos, and from 1933 it effectively operated as Alfa Romeo's works racing department when that company withdrew from direct participation for financial reasons.

The arrangement ended in 1939 when Alfa Romeo took racing back in house and Ferrari left under an agreement prohibiting him from using the Scuderia Ferrari name or building cars under it for four years. He founded Auto Avio Costruzioni in Modena, which produced machine tools and aircraft components, and built two examples of a car designated the 815, which raced in the 1940 Mille Miglia and which, because of the agreement, could not carry his name.

The factory was moved from Modena to Maranello in 1943 to reduce the risk from bombing, and was nonetheless bombed in 1944 and 1945, then rebuilt. Maranello has remained the company's home.

The first car to bear the Ferrari name was the 125 S of 1947, powered by a 1.5-litre V12 engine designed by Gioacchino Colombo. The choice of a twelve-cylinder engine for a small-capacity car was characteristic: it was more complex and more expensive than any rational commercial calculation justified, and it established the engineering identity the company has retained. The 125 S won its sixth race, at the Rome Grand Prix, in May 1947.

Under Enzo Ferrari, 1947 to 1988

Enzo Ferrari's purpose in selling road cars was to finance racing, a relationship he stated repeatedly and which shaped the company's character. Customers were treated as a means rather than an end, production was deliberately limited, and the engineering priorities of the road cars followed those of the competition programme.

The company's competition record in the 1950s and 1960s was extraordinary. It won the Formula One drivers' championship with Alberto Ascari in 1952 and 1953, Juan Manuel Fangio in 1956, Mike Hawthorn in 1958, Phil Hill in 1961 and John Surtees in 1964. In sports car racing it won the 24 Hours of Le Mans six consecutive times from 1960 to 1965 and the Mille Miglia eight times, and the 250 series of road and competition cars, particularly the 250 GTO of 1962, of which 36 were built, became the most valuable automobiles in the world, with examples selling at auction for more than fifty million dollars.

The period was also marked by tragedy. The 1957 Mille Miglia crash of Alfonso de Portago's Ferrari killed the driver, his co-driver and nine spectators including five children, and led to the abolition of the race and to Enzo Ferrari being charged with manslaughter, charges eventually dismissed. Several works drivers were killed during the same years, and Ferrari's apparent detachment from their deaths, and his willingness to set drivers against one another, formed a substantial part of his public reputation.

Financial pressure obliged the company to seek a partner. Negotiations with Ford in 1963 collapsed when Enzo Ferrari discovered that the proposed terms would have placed the racing programme under Ford's control, and Ford responded by creating the GT40 programme that defeated Ferrari at Le Mans from 1966 to 1969, an episode dramatised in the 2019 film Ford v Ferrari. In 1969 Fiat acquired 50 per cent of Ferrari, with Enzo Ferrari retaining control of the racing operation, and the shareholding rose to 90 per cent after his death, the remaining 10 per cent passing to his son Piero.

Road car production expanded in the 1960s and 1970s with the 275, the Daytona, the mid-engined Dino, named after Enzo's elder son who died in 1956, the Berlinetta Boxer and, in 1984, the Testarossa. The 288 GTO of 1984 and the F40 of 1987, the last car approved by Enzo Ferrari before his death in August 1988, established the pattern of limited-production halo models that has continued through the F50, Enzo, LaFerrari and F80.

Under Fiat and the Montezemolo era, 1988 to 2014

Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, who had managed the racing team in the 1970s, became chairman in 1991 and led the company until 2014. His tenure transformed it from an engineering concern that happened to sell cars into a luxury business.

The changes were substantial. Build quality and reliability, which had been indifferent, were made a priority. Production rose from around 2,000 cars a year to over 7,000, while remaining deliberately below demand so that a waiting list persisted. The Formula Uomo programme rebuilt the Maranello factory with natural light, planting, air quality control and employee facilities, commissioning buildings from architects including Renzo Piano, Jean Nouvel and Massimiliano Fuksas, on the reasoning that the quality of the product depended on the conditions in which it was made. A systematic licensing and merchandising business was created, along with Ferrari-branded stores and, later, theme parks.

The racing team, which had not won a drivers' championship since 1979, was rebuilt around Jean Todt, Ross Brawn, Rory Byrne and Michael Schumacher, and won six consecutive constructors' championships from 1999 to 2004 and five consecutive drivers' championships with Schumacher from 2000 to 2004, the most dominant period any team has had in the sport.

Road cars of the period included the 355, 360, F430 and 458 mid-engined series, the 550 and 599 front-engined grand tourers, the four-seat 612 and FF, the last introducing four-wheel drive, and the Enzo of 2002. The California of 2008, with a folding hard top and a lower price, extended the range downward and was criticised by enthusiasts as a dilution and defended by the company as a means of funding the rest.

Montezemolo left in 2014 after disagreement with Sergio Marchionne, chief executive of Fiat Chrysler, over production volumes and over the direction of the racing team.

Separation and independence, 2015 to 2026

Marchionne separated Ferrari from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, listing 10 per cent on the New York Stock Exchange in October 2015 under the ticker RACE and distributing the remainder to FCA shareholders in January 2016. Exor, the Agnelli family holding company, retained approximately 24 per cent with enhanced voting rights, and Piero Ferrari retained 10 per cent.

The rationale, contested at the time, was that Ferrari's value was obscured inside a mass-market carmaker and that it should be valued as a luxury goods company. The subsequent performance vindicated the argument comprehensively: the shares rose several-fold and the company's market capitalisation, approximately US$85.5 billion by May 2023 and higher subsequently, exceeded that of manufacturers producing a hundred times as many vehicles.

Marchionne served as chairman and chief executive until his sudden illness and death in July 2018. Louis Camilleri, formerly of Philip Morris, led the company from 2018 to 2020, and John Elkann served as interim chief executive before the appointment of Benedetto Vigna in September 2021. Vigna came from STMicroelectronics, where he had run the analogue and sensors division and had been involved in the development of the accelerometers used in smartphones, and his appointment from outside the automotive industry signalled a judgement that Ferrari's principal engineering challenges were becoming electronic.

Motorsport

Formula One

Scuderia Ferrari is the oldest surviving and most successful team in Formula One. It is the only constructor to have entered every world championship season since 1950, and has won 16 constructors' championships and 15 drivers' championships, more than any other team, together with more than 240 grands prix.

Its champions are Alberto Ascari in 1952 and 1953, Juan Manuel Fangio in 1956, Mike Hawthorn in 1958, Phil Hill in 1961, John Surtees in 1964, Niki Lauda in 1975 and 1977, Jody Scheckter in 1979, Michael Schumacher from 2000 to 2004, and Kimi Räikkönen in 2007. The 21-year gap between Scheckter and Schumacher, during which the team was competitive but rarely successful, and the period since 2008, during which it has won no drivers' title, are both longer than the team's supporters regard as tolerable, and the pressure exerted by the Italian press on Ferrari's management is a recognised feature of the sport.

The team's significance to Formula One extends beyond results. It has historically received a payment from the commercial rights holder in recognition of its continuous participation, and has held a contractual right of veto over certain regulatory changes, arrangements no other competitor enjoys and which have been criticised as distorting governance. Its supporters, the tifosi, constitute a following unlike that of any other team, and the Italian Grand Prix at Monza is effectively a home event conducted before them.

Ferrari has supplied engines to other teams throughout its history, including Sauber, Toro Rosso, Haas and Alfa Romeo, and for the 2026 regulations agreed to supply power units to the Cadillac entry operated by Andretti alongside its continuing supply to Haas. Lewis Hamilton, the most successful driver in the sport's history by wins, joined the team for the 2025 season.

The Ferrari Driver Academy, established in 2009, develops young drivers, and its graduates include Charles Leclerc, Jules Bianchi, Lance Stroll, Mick Schumacher and Oliver Bearman.

Sports car racing

Ferrari's endurance record includes nine victories at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, with six consecutive wins from 1960 to 1965, and wins in the World Sportscar Championship, the Targa Florio and the Mille Miglia. The company withdrew from top-level prototype racing in 1973 to concentrate resources on Formula One, and its competition activity for the following half century was conducted principally through customer GT cars raced by teams including AF Corse, Risi Competizione and Frikadelli.

It returned to prototype racing in 2023, entering two 499P hypercars in the FIA World Endurance Championship in partnership with AF Corse. One car was numbered 50 to mark the fifty years since a works Ferrari had last competed in the discipline. The 499P won the 2023 24 Hours of Le Mans, ending a five-year sequence of Toyota victories and giving Ferrari its first win in the race for 58 years, and repeated the result in 2024, the first consecutive Le Mans wins since 1965. In 2025 Ferrari secured both the manufacturers' and drivers' titles in the World Endurance Championship at the season-ending race in Bahrain, with the drivers' title going to Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado and Antonio Giovinazzi.

In the same period a Frikadelli Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 won the 2023 Nürburgring 24 Hours outright, completing a record 162 laps.

Customer racing

The Ferrari Challenge, a one-make series running since 1993 in Europe, North America and Asia, allows owners to race identical cars prepared by the factory. Corse Clienti supports customers racing historic Formula One cars in the F1 Clienti programme and the XX Programmes, in which track-only development cars such as the FXX and 599XX are operated by the factory on behalf of owners who are not permitted to take them home. These arrangements are a substantial business and an unusual one, in that the company sells its customers an experience of ownership in which it retains custody of the object.

Road cars

Ferrari's current range comprises mid-engined V8 and V6 models, front-engined V12 grand tourers, and, since 2022, a four-door car.

The 296 series, introduced in 2021, uses a 120-degree V6 with a plug-in hybrid system, the first six-cylinder road car to carry the Ferrari name rather than the Dino badge. The SF90 is a plug-in hybrid with a twin-turbocharged V8 and three electric motors producing close to a thousand horsepower, and was the company's first series-production hybrid. The Roma and Portofino are front-engined V8 grand tourers positioned at the accessible end of the range. The 12Cilindri, introduced in 2024, continues the naturally aspirated front-engined V12 line that runs from the 250 through the Daytona, 550, 599 and 812.

The Purosangue, introduced in 2022, is the company's first four-door, four-seat car, with a naturally aspirated V12 and rear-hinged back doors. Ferrari declined to describe it as a sport utility vehicle, a category it had long said it would never enter, and limited it to roughly 20 per cent of annual production in order to protect the brand. Its commercial success has been considerable, following the pattern established by Porsche with the Cayenne and by Lamborghini with the Urus, and demonstrating that the objection to such vehicles among enthusiasts does not extend to buyers.

The F80, announced in 2024, is the current limited-production halo car, following the 288 GTO, F40, F50, Enzo and LaFerrari, and uses a hybrid V6 derived from the endurance racing programme.

Special projects and customisation

The Tailor Made and Atelier programmes allow buyers to specify materials, colours and details beyond the standard catalogue. The Special Projects programme produces one-off cars designed for individual clients on existing mechanical platforms, of which examples include the P4/5 built for James Glickenhaus, the SP12 EC for Eric Clapton and the Omologata, and which are sold at prices well into eight figures. Icona models, including the Monza SP1 and SP2 and the Daytona SP3, are limited series with bodywork referencing historic designs.

Ferrari's relationship with Pininfarina, which designed the great majority of its road cars from 1952 until the 2010s, ended as the company's internal Centro Stile took over design, a transition completed with the LaFerrari.

Electrification

Ferrari announced that it would present its first fully electric vehicle at its Capital Markets Day on 9 October 2025, where it showed the production-ready chassis and components of a project it called Ferrari Elettrica, with a fuller reveal to follow. The company has stated a target of a substantial proportion of hybrid and electric models in its range by 2030 while continuing to produce internal combustion engines.

The technical and commercial problem is particular to Ferrari. A substantial part of what its customers buy is the sound and response of an engine, and an electric powertrain removes both, while the weight of a battery is contrary to every principle of the company's engineering. Its response has been to build the battery and motors in house at a new facility at Maranello, the e-building opened in 2024, and to argue that the character of a Ferrari resides in dynamics and in the relationship between driver and machine rather than in the engine alone, a proposition the market has yet to test.

Road car history

The Colombo and Lampredi V12s, 1947 to 1968

The first Ferraris used the 1.5-litre V12 designed by Gioacchino Colombo, a unit whose capacity was progressively enlarged through the 166, 195, 212 and 250 series. A parallel long-block V12 designed by Aurelio Lampredi powered the larger cars and the Formula One entries of the early 1950s.

The 250 series, produced from 1953 to 1964, is the most celebrated in the company's history and includes the 250 GT Berlinetta, the short-wheelbase 250 GT SWB, the 250 GT California Spyder, the 250 GT Lusso and the 250 GTO. Only 36 GTOs were built, homologated for grand touring competition, and they have become the most valuable cars in existence, with public sales above US$48 million and private transactions reported considerably higher. The 250 Testa Rossa, named for the red-painted cam covers of its engine, won Le Mans three times.

The 275 GTB of 1964 introduced a transaxle and independent rear suspension, and the 365 GTB/4, universally known as the Daytona after Ferrari's 1967 one-two-three finish in that race, was the last of the classic front-engined V12 berlinettas before the company moved its two-seat models behind the driver.

Mid-engined cars and the Dino, 1967 to 1988

The Dino 206 and 246 GT, introduced from 1967 and named after Enzo Ferrari's son Alfredo, used a transverse V6 and were sold without Ferrari badging, in part because Enzo Ferrari was reluctant to attach the name to a car with fewer than twelve cylinders. They are now regarded as among the most beautiful cars of the period and were the foundation of the mid-engined line that has produced the company's volume models ever since.

The 308 GTB of 1975, with a transverse V8 and bodywork by Pininfarina, became the most widely recognised Ferrari of its generation, assisted by its appearance in the television series Magnum, P.I. It was succeeded by the 328, 348, 355, 360, F430, 458, 488 and F8, an unbroken development of the same architecture over five decades.

The Berlinetta Boxer of 1973 and the Testarossa of 1984 used flat-twelve engines and were the flagship models of the period, the Testarossa's side strakes making it among the defining objects of 1980s design.

The 288 GTO of 1984 was built to homologate a Group B rally car for a series that was cancelled before it competed, leaving 272 examples of a car with no purpose. The F40, launched in 1987 to mark the company's fortieth anniversary and the last model approved by Enzo Ferrari, was the first road car to exceed 200 miles per hour, and was deliberately austere, with no carpet, plastic pull-cord door releases and exposed composite in the cabin.

The modern flagships

The F50 of 1995 used a derivative of a Formula One V12. The Enzo of 2002 introduced carbon-ceramic brakes and an electronic differential to the road range. LaFerrari of 2013 was the company's first hybrid, using the kinetic energy recovery technology developed for Formula One to add power rather than to save fuel. The F80 of 2024 continues the series with a hybrid V6.

Each was produced in limited numbers and sold only to existing customers, and each has appreciated substantially, which has made the allocation of such cars a matter of consequence to collectors and a source of the loyalty on which the company's ordinary sales depend.

Technical partnerships and technology transfer

Ferrari's road cars have historically received technology developed for racing, an arrangement the company emphasises in its marketing and which is more genuine than similar claims elsewhere. Paddle-shift semi-automatic transmissions, introduced in Formula One in 1989, reached the road in the 355 F1 of 1997 and are now universal. Carbon-ceramic brakes, electronic differentials, traction and stability systems tuned by racing engineers, hybrid energy recovery and aerodynamic devices including active flaps and underbody diffusers all followed the same route.

The company has maintained long technical partnerships with Shell for fuels and lubricants, with Brembo for braking systems, with Pirelli for tyres and with Magneti Marelli for electronics, and has supplied engines to Maserati for many years under Fiat ownership, an arrangement that ended as both companies' strategies diverged.

Its electronics capability has grown substantially under Benedetto Vigna, whose background is in semiconductors, and the e-building at Maranello, opened in 2024, produces electric motors, battery modules and inverters in house rather than buying them from suppliers, on the reasoning that these components will determine the character of future cars as the engine has determined it in the past.

Recalls and reliability

Ferrari has issued a number of recalls, including one in 2010 affecting the 458 Italia after several fires attributed to an adhesive used in the rear wheel arch liners, which were replaced with mechanical fasteners, and a 2021 recall of approximately 23,000 cars over a brake fluid reservoir cap fault that could cause loss of braking. The company's reliability, historically poor by the standards of mass-market manufacturers, improved substantially under the quality programmes introduced during the Montezemolo period, and its cars now carry warranties and maintenance programmes of seven years as standard, an arrangement intended to reduce the running costs that had deterred buyers.

Stores, museums and attractions

The Museo Ferrari at Maranello and the Museo Enzo Ferrari in Modena, the latter built around the house in which the founder was born and designed by Jan Kaplický, display cars and racing history and attract several hundred thousand visitors a year, making them among the most visited corporate museums in the world.

Ferrari World Abu Dhabi opened in 2010 on Yas Island and contains Formula Rossa, the fastest roller coaster in the world, reaching 240 kilometres per hour. Ferrari Land opened at PortAventura in Spain in 2017. Ferrari-branded stores operate in a number of cities, and the company has developed a fashion line presented at Milan Fashion Week since 2021, a move into apparel designed and produced under its own control rather than licensed.

Culture and collecting

Ferrari occupies a position in popular culture that no other manufacturer matches, and the marque's presence in film, television and music since the 1960s has been continuous. The classic car market treats Ferraris as a distinct asset class, and the company maintains Ferrari Classiche, a department that authenticates historic cars, issues certificates of originality and restores them using original drawings and, where necessary, newly manufactured parts to original specification, a service that both preserves the cars and gives the company influence over a secondary market in which its products change hands for very large sums.

The concentration of value in the historic cars has produced litigation over authenticity, over the reconstruction of cars from partial remains, and over the use of the marque's names and shapes by replica builders, against which Ferrari has enforced its rights persistently.

The company's control over its customers is unusual. It has objected publicly to modifications of its cars, has written to owners who have altered them, and has at times declined to supply further vehicles to buyers who resold limited editions quickly. Legal challenges to these practices have had limited success, and the arrangement persists because access to allocation is worth more to the customers concerned than the freedom they surrender.

Identity

The prancing horse

The Cavallino Rampante, a black prancing horse on a yellow shield, was given to Enzo Ferrari by the parents of Francesco Baracca, the Italian air ace killed in 1918, who had carried the emblem on his aircraft. Baracca's mother suggested to Ferrari in 1923 that the horse would bring him luck. The yellow background is the colour of Modena, Ferrari's birthplace, and the green, white and red at the top of the shield are the Italian national colours.

Colour

Rosso Corsa, racing red, was the international motor racing colour assigned to Italy under the national colour conventions that governed the sport before commercial sponsorship, in the same system that gave Britain green, France blue and Germany white and later silver. Its association with Ferrari is strong enough that red remains the most requested colour for the road cars, although the proportion has fallen below half as customers have sought to distinguish their cars from one another.

Brand

Ferrari's brand strategy is built on scarcity. Production is deliberately held below demand, cars are allocated rather than sold, and access to limited editions depends on a customer's history with the marque, an arrangement that has produced both intense loyalty and litigation from buyers who consider themselves unfairly excluded. The company has restricted what owners may do with its cars, objecting to modifications and to resale within specified periods, and has on occasion declined to sell to individuals it considers unsuitable.

Brand licensing extends to clothing, watches, eyewear, electronics and theme parks, including Ferrari World Abu Dhabi, opened in 2010 and containing the fastest roller coaster in the world, Ferrari Land at PortAventura in Spain, and a park in Spain and one announced in China. The licensing business has been managed with increasing restraint since a period in the 2000s when the name appeared on a very wide range of goods, on the reasoning that exclusivity is the asset and that it is depleted by use.

In October 2023 Ferrari began accepting cryptocurrency for vehicle purchases in the United States, with the intention of extending the arrangement to Europe, converting payments immediately into conventional currency to avoid exposure to price movements.

Engineering

Ferrari's engineering identity has rested on engines. The company has built twelve-cylinder engines continuously since 1947, in V12, flat-12 and V12 hybrid configurations, at a time when almost every other manufacturer abandoned the layout on cost and emissions grounds, and it has argued that the sound, response and smoothness of a naturally aspirated twelve are part of what its customers are buying rather than an engineering means to an end.

Its V8 engines, produced since the Dino 308 GT4 of 1973, have won International Engine of the Year awards repeatedly, and the twin-turbocharged 3.9-litre unit introduced in the 488 was named engine of the year four consecutive times. The 120-degree V6 in the 296, derived from the architecture used in endurance racing, is the first six-cylinder engine to carry Ferrari badging on a road car.

Chassis engineering moved to aluminium spaceframes in the 1990s and to carbon fibre monocoques for the flagship models from the F50 onwards. The company builds its own aluminium structures at a foundry in Modena, a degree of vertical integration unusual at its volume, and develops aerodynamics in its own wind tunnel, designed by Renzo Piano and opened in 1997.

Electronic control of the chassis has become the company's principal area of development. Systems including the electronic differential, side slip control, which allows a degree of oversteer to be sustained rather than suppressed, and brake-by-wire have changed the character of the cars, making performance accessible to drivers who could not have exploited earlier models. The criticism made of this, that the electronics do the driving, is met by the company with the argument that the systems are tuned to flatter rather than to intervene, and the distinction is genuine but difficult to verify.

Formula One controversies

Ferrari's position in Formula One has generated recurring disputes. Team orders, by which a team instructs one driver to yield to another, produced the Austrian Grand Prix of 2002, in which Rubens Barrichello was directed to concede victory to Michael Schumacher on the final lap in front of a hostile crowd, and the German Grand Prix of 2010, in which Felipe Massa was told that Fernando Alonso was faster, a coded instruction for which the team was fined US$100,000. Team orders were banned between 2002 and 2010 and are now permitted.

The team has been at the centre of regulatory disputes including the barge board controversy of 1999, the tyre wars of the early 2000s, and a 2019 investigation into the legality of its power unit fuel flow system, which ended in a private settlement between Ferrari and the governing body whose terms were not disclosed, prompting formal objection from seven rival teams and lasting resentment. Its contractual veto over regulations and its additional share of prize money have been criticised by competitors and defended by the sport's commercial management on the ground that Ferrari's participation is uniquely valuable.

The relationship between the team and the Italian press is a feature of the sport in itself. La Gazzetta dello Sport and the specialist publications treat Ferrari's results as a national matter, and the resulting pressure on team principals has contributed to an unusually high rate of turnover in the role, with Stefano Domenicali, Marco Mattiacci, Maurizio Arrivabene, Mattia Binotto and Frédéric Vasseur all holding it within a fifteen-year period.

Markets and customers

Ferrari's sales are distributed across the Americas, which is its largest single region, EMEA, mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and the rest of Asia-Pacific. The company has deliberately restrained its growth in China, where it has warned that rapid expansion would damage the brand's exclusivity, a judgement contrary to the strategy of most luxury companies over the same period and which proved advantageous when Chinese luxury demand weakened in the mid-2020s.

Its customers are predominantly existing owners: a substantial majority of cars are sold to people who already own one, which both stabilises demand and makes the allocation system possible. Average age has fallen and the proportion of female buyers has risen from a very low base, changes the company attributes to the broader range that the Roma, Portofino and Purosangue represent.

The waiting list has extended beyond two years for most models, and the company has stated that its order book is effectively full into the following year at all times, a position it manages deliberately. The risk in the arrangement is that it measures demand only at the point of order and can conceal a deterioration until the backlog is exhausted.

Environment and regulation

Ferrari's production volumes are small enough that it qualifies for derogations from fleet emissions rules in both the European Union and the United States, where small-volume manufacturers are treated separately from those producing at scale. The company has nonetheless pursued hybridisation, in part because electrical assistance produces performance advantages and in part because regulatory exemptions cannot be relied upon indefinitely, particularly where cities restrict access by internal combustion vehicles.

Its Maranello site has operated with substantial on-site generation since the Formula Uomo programme, including a trigeneration plant and photovoltaic installations, and the company has committed to carbon neutrality across its operations and value chain by 2030, a target that depends heavily on the accounting treatment of the emissions produced when its cars are driven.

Corporate affairs

Finances and sales

Ferrari delivered approximately 13,750 vehicles in 2024 on revenue of about €6.7 billion, with operating margins above 28 per cent, a level no volume car manufacturer approaches and comparable to those of luxury goods companies. Its profit per car is in the order of €100,000, and a substantial and growing proportion of revenue comes from personalisation options, which carry very high margins and which now add roughly a fifth to the average transaction price.

The company has stated that it will not pursue volume growth, and its guidance has consistently emphasised value per car over units. Its shareholder register is dominated by Exor with approximately 24 per cent, holding enhanced voting rights under a loyalty structure, and by Piero Ferrari with approximately 10 per cent, with the remainder widely held.

Manufacturing

All Ferrari road cars are built at Maranello, and engines are produced there as well, including those supplied to Maserati until that arrangement ended. The Fiorano circuit adjacent to the factory, opened in 1972, is used for testing and development, and the company also uses Mugello, which it owns.

The Formula Uomo programme has continued to shape the site, and the company has consistently ranked among the best places to work in Europe in employee surveys, with practices including profit sharing, extensive training and on-site facilities. Approximately 5,500 people are employed, the great majority in Maranello and the surrounding area, and the company is the dominant employer in its region.

Leadership

Chairmen have included Enzo Ferrari as founder and president until 1988, Piero Fusaro, Luca Cordero di Montezemolo from 1991 to 2014, Sergio Marchionne from 2014 to 2018 and John Elkann since 2018. Chief executives since separation have been Sergio Marchionne, Louis Camilleri from 2018 to 2020 and Benedetto Vigna since 2021. Piero Ferrari has served as vice chairman since 1988.