Ferrari Yearbook 1989

Table of Contents

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7

The Racing Division

The racing team is supported by an impeccable organisation that designs and builds the Ferrari F1 cars

Ferrari is a company that was created to build racing and high performance sports cars. Over the years, however, its sports cars for amateur enthusiasts (also known as Grand Tourers) have achieved a popularity that has led to production volumes undreamed of in the "heroic" early years.
The division devoted to racing car production has always represented the icing on the company cake and has expanded in step with the production car plant to a point where it had to be split off, so that it now occupies a futuristic plant next door to the Fiorano circuit.

20

Profession: Test Driver

Journalist Gian Paolo Ormezzano delves into the secrets of Dario Benuzzi at work

There's something faintly, even delicately Hemingwayesque about an interview with a test-driver in a car with its engine, as they say, roaring and tyres screeching. The journalist who still has a modicum of belief in the adventurousness of his job thus gets his own back - haphazardly maybe but, here's hoping, agreeably - on the manner and extent to which progress has caught him napping ...

24

The Anniversary Car

F40: forty years after the first appearance of the Prancing Horse

The Ferrari F40 launched on July 21 1987 is the anniversary car that celebrates the forty years that have passed since the first appearance of the "cavallino" marque that has meant Ferrari ever since. Here are the words Enzo Ferrari used in presenting the Ferrari F40 to the journalists assembled in the Maranello Reception Centre.

76

Ferrari Engineering

The research centre, where the dreams of today are transformed into the designs of tomorrow

Automobile innovation is forcing manufacturers to improve their products and manufacturing processes and this is proving increasingly expensive, a huge financial burden for the smaller firms in particular.
As a high quality producer, Ferrari is expected to invest in new materials and manufacturing technologies as wall as innovative calculation, design and quality control systems, the cost of which is increasingly difficult to amortize over the small number of cars actually turned out.

84

Ferrari Mondial t

1989 Debuts

The first revamped model to be presented in 1989 was the Ferrari Mondial t. In layout it is not all that different from the earlier: a 2+2 seater GT. However a whole series of new touches have been added both to its appearance and its engineering.

Ferrari 348 tb/ts

1989 Debuts

The Ferrari 348 with its completely new line and new mechanicals replaces the Ferrari 328. The engine is a newly designed 8-cylinder model mounted lengthwise at the centre and forming a single block with the gearbox which is, however, fitted transversely.

92

Fascinating Females and Flaming Ferraris

Women, especially of the "prima donna" kind have a particular kind of relationship with Ferrari cars that changes with the times

In all the blazing splendor of that "racing red" that makes them instantly recognizable all over the world, the latest Ferrari models were on show in all their tangible perfection at the great "Italia 2000" exhibition in Moscow.
Perhaps surprisingly the first compliments they received cam from a woman. And not just any woman, but the Soviet Union's own First Lady, Raissa Gorbachev.

Author(s)Alida Militello
100

Art Restoration

There are few craftsmen like Fiorenzo Fantuzzi, with the skills to restore an old Ferrari to its original splendor

Old Ferraris cost considerable more than new ones. This is a fact that may be confirmed almost daily by a glance at a specialist's price list or an auction report. An old Ferrari is one built in the first two or three decades of the company's existence: these are not vintage cars because the firm only dates back to 1947. They're just old, some of them left for years at the mercy of the elements, others used in races and then dumped.
Eventually they come to light as sleeping beauties in the back of some garage or in the most unlikely places (at least one was recovered from the bottom of a lake).

106

Ferrari at the Le Mans 24 Hours

The Prancing Horse involvement in the historic French race is an epic that ran for 20 years

The French race known as the Le Mans 24 Hours is one of the most celebrated events in motor racing's entire history. It dates back to 1924 when it was launched as an endurance test for standard production models and it lasts 24 hours because that was the time considered necessary for full testing of all systems including the lights. The race is run on the longish (about 14 km) track in the suburbs of Le Mans, a town in the Sarthe region.

114

The Mugello Circuit

A circuit offering the maximum in technology and safety for test drivers that has also become a meeting place for Ferrari customers

Ferrari has provided itself with a major new instrument for the testing of its new models, where customers also get a chance to take the wheel. That's the Mugello circuit in Tuscany, strategically positioned in central Italy.
The track is 30 km from Florence, 80 km from Bologna, 130 from Pisa and is easily reached by motorway from any of the above airports.




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