Ferrari Colombo Engine

Ferrari Colombo Engine

Ferrari's earliest cars used engines designed by Gioacchino Colombo, who had formerly designed Alfa Romeos for Enzo Ferrari. These V12 powerplants ranged from the diminutive 1.5 L (1497 cc) unit fitted to the 125S to the 3.3 L (3285 cc) unit in the 1966 275.

Enzo Ferrari had long admired the V12 engines of Packard, Auto Union, and Alfa Romeo (where he was long employed), but his first car, the 1940 Auto Avio Costruzioni 815, used a Fiat straight-8. It was only natural that his first homegrown engine would be a V12, and the same basic design would last many years, with development continuing long after original designer Colombo had been replaced by Aurelio Lampredi as the company's marquee engine designer. Although Lampredi's engines were a real force for the company, it was Colombo's V12 which would be the primary motivator for the company's consumer products through the 1950s and 1960s.