At the heart of Ferrari lies passion. It is passion that has been instilled through decades of romance and the mysterious aura that comes from Enzo Ferrari, the car-maker’s founder who died 15 years ago.

Ferrari was a very curious man. He made some of the greatest racing cars ever seen in Formula One and sports car racing. Yet he never attended a race meeting bar the annual Friday practice session of the Italian Grand Prix at Monza. He also destroyed most of the Ferrari race cars and rare road cars that littered the Maranello factory and, amongst many mechanical acts of barbarism, not one of the famous Ferrari shark nose Grand Prix cars that carried all before them in 1961 exists. Ferrari had them all broken up for scrap. If they had survived they would be worth maybe US$3 million each today and would have given immense pleasure to future generations of race fans.

For whatever reason, his strange antics added immense aura to his legend. Yet until the day he died he ruled Ferrari with an iron hand, with the benefit of almost unlimited backing from Gianni Agnelli, who held him in the same awe as the rest of Italy did.

To understand Ferrari’s state of affairs requires going back to its roots. Right from the beginning passion played a huge part with the founder Enzo Ferrari. A professional racing driver, Ferrari founded his own team, Scuderia Ferrari, in Modena in 1929. Probably to help fund his racing ambition he decided to diversify into road cars in 1947. His lovingly hand-made cars were hugely successful, largely for their innovation and potent state-of-the-art engines.

However, if a model did not sell Enzo Ferrari would rip the machine up. Rather than totally scrap the car, he would re-use the material, which often meant melting down the aluminium-alloy parts. It was as if once the love affair with one model was over, he was onto the next best thing right away.

As the company was privately owned by the Ferrari family, there was little need for meticulous accounting. In fact many a biographer has tried to fathom how many cars were actually produced, let alone sales figures, but to little avail.

By 1969, however, the car market had changed dramatically, and there was little room for cottage-style car manufacturing. Enzo Ferrari read the writing on wall and sold 50 per cent of his company to Italy’s largest car manufacturer Fiat. Upon his death in 1988 a further 40 per cent went to Fiat. This left just 10 per cent with the family, which his second son, Piero Ferrari, still owns today. His eldest son and heir, Dino Ferrari, was killed in a road accident and the classic V6 Ferrari Dino model was named after him.