Sports Cars
From the late 1940s to the early 1970s, Ferrari competed in sports car racing with great success, winning the World Sportscar Championship 13 times. Ferrari cars (including non-works entries) won the Mille Miglia 8 times, the Targa Florio 7 times and the 24 Hours of Le Mans 9 times.
Ferrari scored early successes in sportcars, taking wins in the 1950 and 1951 Mille Miglia, although the 1951 vistory resulted in a lengthy litigation when Ascari crashed through a barrier and killed a local doctor.
The 1953 launch of the World Sportscar Championship appealed to Enzo Ferrari, and the company launched a dizzying array of sports racers over the next three years. This included the traditional compact V12-powered 166 MM and 250 MM, the larger V12 Ferrari 290, 340, and 375 MM and 315, 335, and 410 S, the four-cylinder 500, 625, 750, and 860 Monzas, and the six-cylinder Ferrari 118 and 121 LM. With this potent lineup, Ferrari was able to claim six of the first seven WSC titles: 1953, 1954, 1956, 1957, and 1958.
Throughout the 1960s, Ferrari were a dominant force in sportscar racing, winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans 6 years in a row from 1960 to 1965.
The 1970s were the last decade Ferrari entered as a works effort in sports car racing. After an uninspired performance in the 1973 F1 World Championship, Enzo Ferrari stopped all development of sports cars in prototype and GT racing at the end of the year, in order to concentrate on Formula One.
|
||||
Read more about this topic: History Of Scuderia Ferrari
Famous quotes containing the words sports and/or cars:
“In the end, I think you really only get as far as you’re allowed to get.”
—Gayle Gardner, U.S. sports reporter. As quoted in Sports Illustrated, p. 87 (June 17, 1991)
“Cuchulain stirred,
Stared on the horses of the sea, and heard
The cars of battle and his own name cried;
And fought with the invulnerable tide.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)