Scuderia Ferrari was first founded by Enzo Ferrari in 1929 as a sponsor for amateur drivers in various races, though Ferrari himself had raced a bit in Fiat cars before that date. The idea came about on the night of November 16 at a dinner in Bologna, where Ferrari solicited financial help from Augusto and Alfredo Caniato, textile heirs, and wealthy amateur racer Mario Tadini.
He then gathered a team which at its peak included over forty drivers, most of whom raced in Alfa Romeo cars; Enzo himself continued racing, with moderate success, until the birth of his first son Dino in 1932. Ferrari managed numerous established drivers notably Tazio Nuvolari, Giuseppe Campari, Achille Varzi and Louis Chiron and several talented rookies such as Tandini, Guy Moll, Carlo Pintacuda, and Antonio Brivio from his headquarters in Viale Trento e Trieste, Modena, Italy, until 1938, at which point Alfa Romeo made him the manager of the factory racing division, Alfa Corse.
In 1939 he left Alfa upon learning of the company’s intention to buy him out and absorb the Scuderia; his company became Auto Avio Costruzioni Ferrari, which manufactured machine tools until the expiration of his four-year promise of non-competition after leaving Alfa. Despite his agreement with Alfa, Ferrari immediately began work a racecar of his own, the Tipo 815.
The 815s, designed by Alberto Massimino, were thus the first true Ferrari cars, but after Alberto Ascari and the Marchese Lotario Rangoni Machiavelli di Modena drove them in the 1940 Mille Miglia, World War II put a temporary end to racing and the 815s saw no more competition. Ferrari continued to manufacture machine tools (specifically oleodynamic grinding machines); in 1943 he moved his headquarters to Maranello, where in 1944 it was promptly bombed.
Rules for a Grand Prix World Championship had been laid out before the war but it took several years afterward for the series to get going; meanwhile Ferrari rebuilt his works in Maranello and constructed the 12-cylinder, 1.5 L Tipo 125, which competed at several non-championship Grands Prix. The car made its debut in the 1948 Italian Grand Prix with Raymond Sommer, and achieved its first win at the minor Circuito di Garda with Giuseppe Farina.