The prancing horse first flew on the plane of a First World War fighter ace. In 1923 his mother told a young Enzo Ferrari to put it on his cars: it would bring him good fortune.
- Country
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Italy - Active
- Since 1947
- Founded by
- Enzo Ferrari
- Website
- Official website ↗
A horse from the sky
The most famous horse in motoring never ran on a track. It flew. Francesco Baracca, one of Italy’s great fighter aces of the First World War, painted a black prancing horse on the fuselage of his plane. He was killed in June 1918, and the horse might have stayed a wartime memory.
Then came a young driver from Modena. Enzo Ferrari was born there on 18 February 1898 and made his racing debut in 1919. On 17 June 1923 he won the Circuito del Savio in Ravenna. It was his first win, and at the race he met Baracca’s parents, Count Enrico and Countess Paolina. According to Ferrari, the Countess suggested he put her son’s horse on his cars. “It will bring you good fortune,” she told him.
There was a personal link, too. Goodwood notes that Enzo’s older brother Alfredo served and died in Baracca’s squadron.
Nine years in a drawer
Ferrari didn’t use the horse straight away. On 16 November 1929, at a notary’s office in Modena, he and a group of partners formed Scuderia Ferrari, a team set up to buy Alfa Romeo racing cars and enter them in races.
The horse finally appeared on 9 July 1932, at the Spa 24 Hours in Belgium. It was painted on the team’s Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 MM cars, and the debut went rather well: Antonio Brivio and Eugenio Siena won, with teammates Piero Taruffi and Guido D’Ippolito second.
Black horse, yellow field
Ferrari made the badge his own with two choices. He kept Baracca’s horse black, and he put it on a canary yellow background, the colour of Modena, his home town. So the emblem carries two stories at once: a war hero’s good-luck charm and a city’s colour.
When Ferrari became a carmaker in its own right in 1947, the prancing horse became the brand’s emblem. The drawing had been refined just before. In 1945 Enzo commissioned Eligio Gerosa, a Milanese engraver who had made enamel badges for Alfa Romeo and had already adapted the black horse with an upturned tail. Ferrari’s own sketch notes survive. One reads “Invertire il cavallo”, turn the horse around. Enzo rejected an early version that used the Italian colours in curved lines, asking for straight lines instead, and he wanted the hoof raised so it didn’t touch the lettering.
Gerosa’s firm was taken over in 1949 by O.M.E.A., owned by the Candiani family, who went on to work with Ferrari for about thirty years. A plaque on their old workshop in Via Albani, Milan, still honours those craftsmen.
Shield for the Scuderia, rectangle for the road
The horse comes in two shapes. The shield is the badge of Scuderia Ferrari, the racing side. Ferrari calls the version painted on its cars the Scuderia Ferrari fender shield. According to J.D. Power, the letters S and F on it stand for Scuderia Ferrari, while the road cars use a rectangular badge with the Ferrari name, a form that goes back to the 125 S of 1947.
The shield isn’t only for race cars, though. It is offered as an option on every Ferrari model, one on each side of the car. In Maranello it is painted by hand, layer by layer, and each shield can take up to eight hours.
Giallo Modena and a strip of flag
Ferrari lists the shield’s colours as black, Giallo Modena and the red and green of the Italian flag. The yellow is the city’s, the black is Baracca’s. The red you think of first sits on the cars rather than in the badge: Goodwood explains that Rosso Corsa became Italy’s racing colour in the 1920s, when national teams were told apart by colour.
The cars that carried the horse
The horse raced on someone else’s cars before it ever went on a Ferrari. Here are a few milestones it has worn since.
Landmark Ferraris, decade by decade
- 1932: Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 MM. Not a Ferrari, but the first car to race with the prancing horse, winning the Spa 24 Hours for Scuderia Ferrari.
- 1947: 125 S. The first Ferrari. It first ran on 12 March 1947, retired at Piacenza in May (“a promising failure”, said Enzo) and won the Rome Grand Prix with Franco Cortese two weeks later.
- 1987: F40. Part of Ferrari’s line of limited-edition models, alongside the 288 GTO, F50 and Enzo.
- 2013: LaFerrari. Unveiled in Geneva as Maranello’s first production car to use electric hybrid power.
- 2019: SF90 Stradale. The first plug-in hybrid Ferrari, with a turbocharged V8 and three electric motors.
Ferrari’s horse grew up inside Alfa Romeo’s racing world, and Italy has a few other animal and myth badges worth comparing, from the bull of Lamborghini to the trident of Maserati. For more on how emblems like these come together, see how car logos are designed.
Frequently asked questions
Where does the Ferrari horse come from?
From Francesco Baracca, an Italian First World War fighter ace who painted a prancing horse on his plane. His mother, Countess Paolina, suggested Enzo Ferrari use it for good luck after they met at the 1923 Circuito del Savio in Ravenna.
Why is the Ferrari logo yellow?
Enzo Ferrari added a canary yellow background because it is the colour of Modena, his home city. Ferrari calls the shade Giallo Modena.
When was the prancing horse first used?
On 9 July 1932, on Scuderia Ferrari’s Alfa Romeos at the Spa 24 Hours. It became the emblem of Ferrari the carmaker in 1947, starting with the 125 S.
What is the difference between the shield and the rectangle badge?
The shield is the Scuderia Ferrari badge, linked to racing and offered as a painted option on the side of road cars. The rectangle with the Ferrari name is the badge used on the road cars themselves.
From Baracca's fuselage to Maranello: the horse's papers
- Founded
- 1947
- Founder
- Enzo Ferrari
- Country
- Italy
- Headquarters
- Maranello, Italy
- Current emblem
- A black prancing horse on Giallo Modena, as a rectangle with the Ferrari name on road cars and a shield for Scuderia Ferrari
- Known for
- Red sports cars and the Scuderia Ferrari racing team
- Website
- Official website ↗
