Enzo Anselmo Ferrari was born in 1898 just before the turn of the century, 12 years after the birth of the automobile. He grew up in Modena, 50 km north-west of Bologna (Northern Italy), where he died 90 years later. Not only during the races his cars drove long distances without him.

The father operates a workshop for the manual processing of metals, perhaps a locksmith's shop or a smithy. It is the 'Officina Meccanica Alfredo Ferrari', a medium-sized business with 15 to 30 employees, where Enzo's father does all that his employees are not able to.

Oh, the company, near the railroad, produces gangways and metal houses for the railway. One can assume a modest prosperity in the not very rich Italy to the turn of the century. Enzo has a two-year-old brother, the should be a daughter.

In later times Enzo Ferrari had a run to storytelling. How else is it to explain that everywhere is to be read that on the days around his birth so much snow had been falling that he could be registered only two days later.

Ferrari, the man with the two dates of birth, because officially only the day of the registration is valid in Italy. However, at the times of Internet on the Italian Wikipedia pages can be seen that the weather data published by the Geophysical Observatory of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia indicated temperatures between -1.8°C and +10.8°C does not quite support such a story. Perhaps the registration of the small Enzo has simply been messed up.

They were located in a suburb of Modena. The family lived in the smaller part of the house, above the workshop. Enzo shared the children's room with his brother, but without heating. He will later report how they were awakened in the morning by the busy activity in the workshop.

The brother is named Alfredo, with his first names, not unimportant for the main life line of Enzo. Even his son, who had died very early, has this first name. Alfredo's nickname is Alfredino, which directs thoughts to very specific later vehicles. But we are still far from that.

The surname 'Ferrari' may sound foreign to us. But in Modena the exact opposite is the case. There the name is one of the most common, even today. You have to put Enzo in front of it if you want to know something about the most famous Italian after the respective pope.

Although very busy, the father is described as culturally very intrested. Before we come to his cars and his interest for authors, here is a word about the Italy of the century turn. As a state it is only 30 years old and therefore more like Germany. A contrast to this would be the already existing France for centuries.

In contrast to Germany, however, there would have been a fixed geographic allocation in Italy within natural limits. Certainly, the presence of a church state in the center of the Italian peninsula has brought Italy continually in the hands of foreign powers.

The unification of Italy is favored by a widespread European demand for political participation, called 'Risorgimento' in Italy in the mid-nineteenth century (for example, 1848 Frankfurt Pauls Church). Insurgents are groups formed by volunteers from many parts of Italy who, under the leadership of Garibaldis, often gain victories against far superior regular troops.

The industrial revolution e.g. with the construction of railways will have had its influence, with, however, the rather opposite interests of France and Austria-Hungary. After the founding of the Unity State in 1870, the Pope and his state also bar the way of this. The conflict weighs heavily on the new political structure of Italy.

Italy is and remains the country of great opposites. Not only between the slowly industrialized north and the poverty-stricken, massive emigration in the south. Only since 1882 existed reforms, e.g. the general and free schooling. However, only 7 percent of the population is now eligible for elections.

Women's suffrage is not introduced in Italy after the next electoral reform in 1912. Opposition also between large industrials in the north or large agarics in the south on the one hand and workers without land rights on the other hand. It is best to see the turmoil between the chistian trade unions founded in 1906 and the already early-organized socialist trade unions.

From 1915 to 1916 Italy was allied with Austria-Hungary and Germany and in a trade war with France until shortly before the turn of the century. It is a turbulent time in which Enzo Ferrari is born. In the same year there is a general strike in Milan, just 200 km away. Two years later the king is murdered.

He himself is described as a normal child with a childhood which is probably to be called happy. The fate will soon be broken upon him. The father already 1903 owned a car called De Dion Bouton. A little later two are added. The family can not have been so poor, because cars are very rare at the time, though they only have one cylinder.

At the top you see a DeDion & Bouton from 1903. It has almost 900 cm³ and brings the car to 60 km/h, perhaps a reason why the father soon has two more cars. De Dion & Bouton is also a very well-established company at this time. Before the time of the combustion engines, it produced steam-powered vehicles. In accordance with this, in 1909, its first V8 engine.

The 1908 race was attended by the father with his two sons, presumably with many subsequent debates between him and the older one. Here, round averages of more than 130 km/h and racing speeds of almost 120 km/h. In contrast to today, Fiat was a dominant racing brand. The speeds of the engines are growing only slowly, the cubic capacity the faster. Beyond the 20 liters one will stop thus from about 1920 and prefer to put on lighter engines with higher speed.

The fact that from the consideration of racing events would become a fascination, is at Enzo Ferrari at the time probably not yet foreseeable. Also from the later qualities such as interacting with people, there is still little to be felt. However, Ferrari's later statement that he would have wanted to become a simple worker is not true.

In contrast to his brother, he is not very successful at school, but he is so sporty that he can launch articles about football games in larger gazettes. Also a career as opera singer he could have imagined. And lastly, he mentions a job as a racing driver. Organizing of racing was not yet spoken about.

Perhaps even explicable. The world around him is not yet ready. If someone like Enzo Ferrari develops particularly, this is always the result of particularly favorable additions. In addition to talent, the boundary conditions must also be right. Even a Second World War, as bad as it could have been, contributed to this.