Ferrari Celebrates 70 Years of History in Maranello

Ferrari celebrated its 70th Anniversary over the weekend of September 9-10, 2017 at the Fiorano circuit in Maranello, Italy. The two days of festivities culminated with a Concours d’Elegance for the 120 historic cars on display within Ferrari’s private racetrack primarily used for development and testing purposes.

The entrants at the Ferrari 70th Anniversary Concours d’Elegance competed for the title of Best of Show in the Racing Car and Road Car categories. Divided into 20 different classes and displayed on the grass at Fiorano, the entries presented judges with a very difficult task. Nonetheless, the jury finally agreed to award the two titles to the 1953 Ferrari 340 MM Spider Vignale and the 1986 Ferrari Testarossa Spider.

The 340 MM Spider Vignale, chassis 0280AM, has a spectacular sporting history. This example competed in several races and its greatest coup was taking victory in the 1953 Mille Miglia for Scuderia Ferrari in the hands of Giannino Marzotto and Marco Crosara.

The winning 1986 Testarossa Spider is the only spider version of this model built. It was commissioned especially to celebrate Gianni Agnelli’s 20th anniversary as Fiat chairman and he owned it until 1991. It sold for €1,210,080 at the 2016 Artcurial Retromobile auction, well in excess of its €680,000 – €900,000 estimate.

A memorable moment of the Fiorano weekend was the RM Sotheby’s auction. The start of the event was marked by a flyover by the Eurofighter Typhoons of the Italian Airforce’s 4th Wing from Grosseto, which have a deep connection to Ferrari as their fuselages sport the Prancing Horse insignia, first used by the Italian fighter ace Francesco Baracca. The auction saw collectors vying for the 38 Maranello cars, which included an exclusive LaFerrari Aperta sold for 8.3 million euro. That sum will be donated in its entirety to Save the Children to provide education to thousands of the most disadvantaged children across Africa, Asia, Europe and South America. In all, the cars that went under the hammer fetched a total of 63 million euro, a record figure for a single-make sale. (See auction results).

As part of this special weekend dedicated to Ferrari fans, international rallies that began in several European cities — Frankfurt, Geneva, London, Monte Carlo, Prague, Reims, Salzburg and Rome — converged in Milan. Then on Saturday morning a single grand parade of 500 Ferraris drove to the Fiorano circuit, the main venue of this celebration of motoring.

Another unforgettable high point was Saturday evening’s Rosso 70 show which commenced with a welcome speech by Chairman Sergio Marchionne before illustrating Enzo Ferrari’s unique vision and dreams and how they crystallised into everything that Ferrari represents in the world. The central part of the show focused on the lifestyles and changing society of the last 70 years. Taking turns on the stage also were the first Ferrari ever built, the 125 S, the 250 California of the 1950s, the 250 GTO of 1962, the 512 BB, the Testarossa, the F50, the Enzo and the LaFerrari Aperta, the Prancing Horse 70th anniversary car.

Ferrari 70th Anniversary Celebration – Photo Gallery

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