Ferrari Symbol

Engineering related if you can afford one. I like Ferrari's but where did the horse symbol originate from?

Only prize is a few smiley faces.

(I discovered the answer in a very interesting book)

* Danny M *

if story i heard is right was on fuselage of a plane of ww1 ace.

Couldn't say, as Im a fan of the "Ferrari Killers" [ Porsche ].

One smiley face! awarded to naughtyboy.

To gain more then more details are required.

At least 5 to become a WW1 ace from 100 years ago.

Edited By Danny M2Z on 30/11/2016 09:37:48

was count francis barocco?

been dragging memory banks lol.

Francesco Baracca

Can I swap my Ferrari for an RX8 please, I prefer alternative innovative engineering

Porsche built the engines for Tiger tanks, Ferdinand and Elefant. Pretty impressive for their day.

i was nearly right, can i have half a smiley?

Edited By naughtyboy on 30/11/2016 09:47:52

I used the net and cheated so naughtyboy gets the smileys

only know due to used build loads of models as kid.

Ferrari build tractors, tractors replaced horses, didn't know what to do with the left over horses, so he stuck them on the cars.

I hope the internal finish of todays Ferrari cars is better than it was thirty years and before, they were a bit "agricultural", lovely on the outside.

Ian S C

Naughtyboy gets the bananas. Francesco Barracca was the top scoring Italian ace of WWI almost a hundred years ago. He fell in flames in June 1918 and only flew French machines. He was a national hero in Italy. After his death his mother presented his personal insignia to Enzo Ferrari whom adopted it as the company logo.

The book where I discovered this info Is called 'Marked For Death, The First War In the Air' by James Hamilton-Paterson. It's a very good read.

* Danny M *

Porsche built the engines for Tiger tanks, Ferdinand and Elefant

I think you will find that Maybach built the engines for those vehicles.

And Hardly Dangerous

The tiger was also frequently dogged by mechanical breakdown and frequently, just abandonment, they either got stuck or ran out of fuel and left, possibly even destroyed by their own crew for the sake of denying the enemy any technological secrets. The british were fortunate enough to get their hands on one that was immobilized intact and studied it closely to their astonishment.

So many of them never even met their fate in the heat of battle, they also couldn't produce alot of them in time, compared to the cheaper and more mobile russian T34. Which despite having a smaller cannon was still a formidable match. Engineers in the war were infuriated that Hitler had an overriding obsession with number of tanks produced rather than allocating resources into repairing the ones he's still got.

Eventually the american sherman crews, after simply bouncing many shells of the hulls of tigers, realized that it was better to aim for the turret of a tiger rather than the front slope as that was where you could actually do some damage and hope to knock out the tank commander.

Little known fact, we actually named it the tiger, not the germans, they simply called it panzer mark 6? i think. Theory goes that once the intelligence agencies learned of their existence they named it the tiger after the divisions they were assigned to. 

Michael W

Edited By Michael Walters on 30/11/2016 11:10:22

Went to the Haynes motor museum a few years ago and they had a special Ferrari exhibition. There was a document on display that showed the permitted sizes and proportions of the logo for a variety of uses, the tolerances were very tight as I recall.

I must beg to differ. According to my references, Professor Dr. Ferdinand Porsche was appointed chairman of the Panzerkommission (tank commission) in September 1939. In 1940 Porsche (backed by Hitler) began the design of the Porsche Typ 100 (VK 30.01 (P)) heavy tank. Porsche was then ordered to use the the 8.8cm Kamfwagenkanone (KwK) 36 developed from the 8.8 cm Flugzeugabwehrkanone.

On 18 April 1942 the Nibelungenwerke completed one VK 45.01 (P) which was presented to Hitler at the Wolfsschance in east Prussia. Apparently Hitler preferred the Porsche to the rival Henschel tank.

The biggest weakness of these monsters imho is that they were rushed into service with insufficient debugging + they were too heavy for mud and no recovery system was in place. But 200mm of frontal armour (about 8"  really p*ssed off the opposition and the 88mm gun outranged all but field artillery.

Interestingly enough (There's hope Neil) this series of heavy (30Ton+) vehicles were electrically driven, the twin Porsche engines powered the generators.

In wartime many things happen. Some good, some bad.

Anyway, we are a long way from the Ferrari symbol but then that's why the Tea Room it is a good place to chat as it's not compulsory reading. * Danny M *

Edited By Danny M2Z on 30/11/2016 11:14:03

Edited By Danny M2Z on 30/11/2016 11:18:34

Look up 'Prancing Moose', got the T-shirt!

Geoff