PastImperfect: The Prancing HorseArguably the best known symbol in the automotive world, the Prancing Horse of Ferrari owes its origins to one Francesco Baracca, an Italian flying hero of the first World War.
He was the son of a wealthy landowner from the Ravenna region of Italy, and as a young man enrolled in the Scuola Militare from where he duly graduated as a sub-lieutenant of cavalry in 1909.
Fascinated by the aircraft which Italy had used in the 1911-12 Tripoli campaign, Baracca applied to join the Italian air service, gaining his pilot's licence in July 1912 at Reims.
Italy entered the first World War on the Allied side in May 1915, having declared war on the Austro-Hungarian empire. Baracca quickly gained a considerable reputation as an artillery spotter and reconnaissance expert and was credited with the only double initial victory recorded during the entire war. Baracca went on to lead his squadron to become the most successful in the Italian Air Service and to personally score 34 victories before his death.
Accounts of the circumstances of his death vary, but it would appear that he was brought down by a chance shot from the ground. Whatever the truth, he died a national hero. After the war, Enzo Ferrari, who had started the first World War shoeing mules and finished it as a mechanic, was just beginning to make a name for himself as a racing driver when he scored a fine victory in the 1923 Circuit of Savio. After the race, Conte Enrico Baracca met Ferrari and invited him to visit his home.
There, the Contessa Baracca presented the relatively unknown Ferrari with the Cavallino Rampante crest of her son as a good luck emblem. Thereafter, all of the cars raced by Ferrari carried the Cavallino to which he added a yellow background representing the town of Modena. When Ferrari turned to car manufacture, it was a natural step to adopt the rampant horse which he had taken to many victories on the race track as their symbol.
It remains a mystery as to why the Baracca family singled out Ferrari - who at the time had achieved little - as being worthy to carry the famous crest of their hero son, 'Francesco the great'. Perhaps the answer lies in a link that is not well-known for Ferrari's brother Alfredo (known, like his son, as 'Dino') served and died with the Squadron Baracca.
Baracca had in his early days of flying been a gunner to whom he was greatly attached and when this man was killed in action, Baracca decided that he would no longer risk the life of a crewman and thereafter only flew single-seater fighters.
History does not record if this anonymous gunner was Dino Ferrari and if the Baracca family was repaying a debt of honour in passing over the Cavallino Rampante to his brother Enzo. The one man who might have shed light on the mystery, preferred - as was his way - to remain silent and so add to the legend of how his cars came to bear the most famous of all automotive symbols.