This is the last edition of the Ferrari Monochrome series. Red. Rosso Corsa. This is probably the most typical color for Ferraris all over the world. And of course the color of the Italian racing cars at the time, when the color stood for the country from which the racing car came. Red for Italy, blue for France, green for England and white for Germany, which later became silver, but that’s another story.
Red is the color of love and passion. In the emojis on our smartphones, hearts come in all colors, but if we want to show special affection, of course we use the red heart.
The color red is considered a warm shade. It stands for joy, love, passion as well as beauty and may also send erotic signals. But it’s also one of the most conspicuous colors, so it’s also used for many warning signals, often in conjunction with white.
Of course, red also represents aggression and anger, and that brings us back to Ferrari, the wonderful and fast sports cars from Maranello in northern Italy. A red Ferrari actually looks more aggressive and faster than Ferraris painted differently. Red is Ferrari’s corporate color, the color where every child knows immediately that it is a Ferrari, even if it were a different car brand.
The pictures show Ferraris from several decades but there is a certain timelessness in the color red. It is modern but also classic at the same time.
A Ferrari that can only be red for me is the Ferrari F40, the last super sports car completed during Enzo Ferrari’s lifetime, which was presented on the occasion of Ferrari’s fortieth anniversary in 1987. Its successors, the F50 and Enzo, only look really good and right in red. Likewise the predecessor of the F40, the Ferrari 288GTO.
Many other ferraris also work in other colors, above all the 246GT Dino, of course, but also many from the 250 GT series come in a variety of colors.
But the color red will probably always be a synonym for speed, aggressiveness and technical sophistication and thus for the Ferrari brand. Even if the red color has changed slightly over time, it is and remains the distinguishing feature of the wonderful sports and racing cars from the small but world-famous Maranello. Find out more about our photographer Ralph Lüker.