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Enzo Ferrari, a former salesman and racing driver for Alfa Romeo, founded Scuderia Ferrari, a racing team, in 1929. Scuderia Ferrari was originally intended to service gentleman drivers and other amateur racers. After Alfa Romeo's withdrawal from racing in 1933, Scuderia Ferrari became its unofficial representative on the track. Alfa Romeo supplied racing cars to Ferrari, which amassed some of the best drivers of the 1930s and won many races before the team's liquidation in 1937.

Late in 1937, Scuderia Ferrari was liquidated and absorbed into Alfa Romeo. Enzo Ferrari's disagreements with upper management led him to leave in 1939. He used his settlement to found his own company, intending to produce his own cars. He named the company "Auto Avio Costruzioni" and headquartered it in the facilities of the old Scuderia Ferrari. Due to a noncompete agreement with Alfa Romeo, the company could not use the Ferrari name for another four years. The company produced a single car, the Auto Avio Costruzioni 815, which participated in only one race before World War II. During the war, Enzo Ferrari's company produced aircraft engines and machine tools for the Italian military, providing significant capital. In 1943, the company's factory was moved to Maranello under threat of Allied bombing raids. The new facility was bombed twice, but Ferrari remains in Maranello to this day.

In 1945, Ferrari adopted its current name. Work began on a new V12 engine for the 125 S, the marque's first car. The company saw motorsport success almost immediately: the 125 S won many races in 1947. Early victories, including the 1949 24 Hours of Le Mans and 1951 Carrera Panamericana, helped build Ferrari's reputation as a high-quality automaker. Ferrari won several more races in the coming years, and by the early 1950s, its road cars were favorites of the international elite. Ferrari produced many families of interrelated cars, including the America, Monza, and 250 series. The company's first series-produced car was the 250 GT Coupé, beginning in 1958.

In 1960, Ferrari was reorganized as a public company. It sought a business partner for manufacturing operations, first approaching Ford in 1963, though negotiations failed. Later talks with Fiat, who bought 50% of Ferrari's shares in 1969, were more successful. In the second half of the decade, Ferrari produced two cars that departed from its traditional models: the 1967 Dino 206 GT, its first mass-produced mid-engined road car, and the 1968 365 GTB/4, which featured streamlined styling. The Dino was a decisive move away from the company's conservative engineering, which had previously featured V12 engines in the front of every road-going Ferrari. This presaged Ferrari's embrace of mid-engine architecture, as well as V6 and V8 engines, in the 1970s and 1980s.

Enzo Ferrari died in 1988, leading Fiat to expand its stake to 90%. The last car he personally approved, the F40, expanded on the flagship supercar approach first tried by the 288 GTO four years earlier. Enzo Ferrari was succeeded in 1991 by Luca di Montezemolo, under whose 23-year chairmanship the company greatly expanded. Between 1991 and 2014, he increased the profitability of Ferrari's road cars nearly tenfold by increasing the range of cars offered and limiting total production. Montezemolo's chairmanship also saw an expansion in licensing deals, a drastic improvement in Ferrari's Formula One performance, and the production of three more flagship cars: the F50, the Enzo, and the LaFerrari.

After Montezemolo resigned, he was replaced by Sergio Marchionne, who oversaw Ferrari's initial public offering and spin-off from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. Louis Camilleri then became CEO and John Elkann became chairman. Beginning in 2021, Benedetto Vigna replaced Camilleri as CEO and announced plans to develop Ferrari's first fully electric model. During this period, Ferrari expanded its production while becoming more selective with its licensing deals.

Since the company's beginnings, Ferrari has been involved in motorsport. Through its works team, Scuderia Ferrari, it has competed in categories including Formula One and sports car racing. The company has also partnered with other teams.

Scuderia Ferrari has been continuously active since the beginning of Formula One. Since 1952, it has fielded fifteen champion drivers, won sixteen Constructors' Championships, and accumulated more race victories, 1–2 finishes, podiums, pole positions, fastest laps, and points than any other team in F1 history.

The earliest Ferrari entity, Scuderia Ferrari, was created in 1929 as a Grand Prix racing team. It was affiliated with automaker Alfa Romeo. Alfa Romeo supplied racing cars to Ferrari, which the team then tuned. Scuderia Ferrari was highly successful in the 1930s, winning 144 out of 225 races between 1929 and 1937.

Ferrari returned to Grand Prix racing in 1947, which was then transforming into modern-day Formula One. The team's first homebuilt Grand Prix car, the 125 F1, first raced at the 1948 Italian Grand Prix. Ferrari's first victory in an F1 series was at the 1951 British Grand Prix, heralding strong performance during the 1950s and early 1960s. Between 1952 and 1964, the team took home six World Drivers' Championships and one Constructors' Championship.

Ferrari's initial fortunes declined after 1964. Its performance improved in the mid-1970s thanks to Niki Lauda, who granted Ferrari drivers' titles in 1975 and 1977. The team also won the Constructors' Championship in 1982 and 1983.

Following another drought, Ferrari saw a long winning streak in the 2000s, largely through Michael Schumacher. After signing in 1996, Schumacher gave Ferrari five consecutive drivers' titles between 2000 and 2004, accompanied by six consecutive constructors' titles starting in 1999. After Schumacher's departure, Ferrari won one more drivers' title in 2007 with Kimi Räikkönen and two constructors' titles in 2007 and 2008.

The first vehicle made with the Ferrari name was the 125 S. Only two of this small two-seat sports/racing V12 car were made. In 1949, the 166 Inter was introduced, marking the company's move into the grand touring road car market. The first 166 Inter was a four-seat (2+2) berlinetta coupé with bodywork designed by Carrozzeria Touring Superleggera. Road cars became the bulk of Ferrari sales. Early Ferrari road cars typically featured bodywork designed and customized by independent coachbuilders such as Vignale, Touring, Ghia, Pininfarina, Scaglietti, and Bertone.

Ferrari's early road cars were typically two-seat front-engined V12s. In the late 1960s and 1970s, Ferrari expanded into mid-engined layouts and smaller engine configurations through models developed under the Dino name. It later introduced mid-engined flat-12 and V8 Ferrari-branded road cars. The mid-engine layout has continued to be used for many of Ferrari's sports cars to the present day.

Starting in the 2010s, Ferrari increasingly relied on in-house design from the Centro Stile Ferrari for road-car styling, while continuing occasional collaborations on limited projects. The Ferrari SF90 Stradale was Ferrari's first series-production road car to feature plug-in hybrid architecture. Ferrari stated it would showcase its first fully electric vehicle at its Capital Markets Day on 9 October 2025.

Ferrari's symbol is the "Prancing Horse" (Italian: Cavallino Rampante), a prancing black horse on a yellow background. Enzo Ferrari recounted that after a 1923 victory in Ravenna, the family of Francesco Baracca, a deceased flying ace who painted the emblem on his airplane, suggested Ferrari adopt the horse as a good luck charm. The Prancing Horse was first used by his racing team in 1932, applied to its Alfa Romeo 8C with the addition of a canary yellow background, the "color of Modena", Enzo's hometown. The rectangular Prancing Horse has been used since 1947, when the Ferrari 125 S became the first to wear it.

For many years, rosso corsa ('racing red') was the required color of all Italian racing cars. It is closely associated with Ferrari. Even after livery regulations changed, Scuderia Ferrari continued to paint its cars bright red, as it does to this day. On Ferrari's road-going cars, red has always been among the company's most popular choices. In 2012, 40 percent of Ferraris left the factory painted red, while in the early 1990s the figure was 85 percent. Some Ferrari vehicles, such as the 288 GTO, have only been made available in red.

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