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The Ferrari F50 was designed to commemorate Ferrari's 50th anniversary
in 1996. Only 349 F50s were made in Ferrari's factory near Modena in
northern Italy.
"We have in 50 years of racing won every kind of victory: Formula One,
Le Mans, Dayton, Sebring," President Luca di Montezemolo said in an
interview. "In this car we put 50 years of know-how."
But he said the F50 is the first and last car Ferrari will build based
on a Formula One engine because of tougher emission standards going
into effect in the next few years in the United States and elsewhere.
"It will be impossible to do it again," he said.
The history of the F50 began in 1990, when Ferrari almost experienced
the F1 World Championship with Alain Prost driving. It was at this time,
Piero Ferrari fathered his plan to take one Ferrari Formula One car and
birth a new road supercar ...thus becoming the F50 project.
Driven by customers asking why the company could not build something
close to a Formula One car that could be driven on the road, the
engineers at Ferrari began looking into the areas of their Grand Prix machine
which made it just that. The power in their road engines, they decided,
was enough, but it was concluded that it would be possible to bring
across much of the technology of Formula One onto a road car.
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