Thursday Trivia

Welcome to Thursday Trivia where we offer up a historical automotive trivia question and you try and solve it before seeing the answer after the jump. It’s like a history test, with cars! 

This week’s question: From whence did the Ferrari Prancing Horse derive, and what was the first car to wear it?

If you think you know the answer, prance over the jump and see if you’re correct.

The Ferrari logo is one of the world’s most recognizable, and one that originally represented a racing team rather than the company that bore the Ferrari name. The Cavallino Rampante that is featured on every car also wearing Ferrari’s name was chosen by Enzo Ferrari at the behest of the parents of Italian flying ace Enrico Baracca after they told Ferrari that it would bring him luck on the track. Baracca had decorated his SPAD fighter with the horse emblem after taking it from a downed German Plane. 

From FastCompany:

In ‘23, I met Count Enrico Baracca, the hero’s father and then his mother, Countess Paolina, who said to me one day, ‘Ferrari, put my son’s prancing horse on your cars. It will bring you good luck.’ The horse was, and still is, black. And I added the canary-yellow background, which is the color of Modena

Ferrari at the time was driving for Alfa Romeo and in 1928 he formed Scuderia Ferrari to promote amateur drivers from his home town of Modena. The team raced prepped Alfas ( including the lucky logo) and hence the first car to carry the Ferrari Prancing Horse, was in fact an Alfa Romeo.

Image source: zerotosixtytimes