Enzo Ferrari came from a well-to-do Modena family which ran a metal-working business.  The family had sufficient money to own an automobile when Enzo was still a toddler and cars were rare. Enzo saw his first motor race when he was 10 years old when his father took him and Enzo's brother Dino to a race around the streets of the nearby city of Bologna and this sparked his interest in the sport.
After World War I Ferrari decided that he wanted to become a racing driver with the FIAT company. After failing to get a job he hung around Turin and met some of the FIAT racing people and found a job as a handyman with a car dealer, driving ex-military trucks south to be refitted and sold as automobiles. Eventually he found a job with the CMN car company thanks to his friendship with Ugo Sivocco, who he had met in Turin. Ferrari took part in his first motor race in October 1919 on a hillclimb in Parma, at the wheel of a CMN. His showing was sufficiently promising for an entry to be made on the Targa Florio. He then went through a period as a driver of an Isotta-Fraschini and then popped up as the owner and driver of an exotic (and very expensive) an Alfa Romeo sportscar. In October 1920 he talked his way into the Alfa Romeo team for the Targa Florio, alongside Giuseppe Campari. A few months later he convinced Sivocco to join Alfa Romeo. While racing he also established an Alfa Romeo dealership in Modena. Ferrari raced on and off for Alfa Romeo for the next few years but built up his influence in the racing department by convincing others to join the team, notably FIAT engineer Luigi Bazzi. By then Alfa Romeo had produced its first Grand Prix car - the P1. It was a disaster. Sivocco crashed one at Monza was killed.
Bazzi suggested that the company hire another FIAT engineer called Vittorio Jano to develop the car. The result was the Alfa Romeo P2 which was an immediate success in 1924 but in July 1925 the company withdrew after its lead driver Antonio Ascari was killed during the French Grand Prix. Jano's P2s were locked away. Ferrari continued to run his businesses and raced on occasion. In 1929 Alfredo Caniato and Mario Tadini and others agreed to fund the establishment of a racing team which Ferrari would run for them, preparing Alfa Romeo cars. With the money they supplied he was able to hire Campari and the team began to grow. When Alfa Romeo decided that it wanted Campari back, Ferrari did a deal to get his hands on one of Jano's P2s and hired a young Tazio Nuvolari to drive it.
Success led to expansion and the team took on rising stars Baconin Borzacchini and Luigi Arcangeli and as the 1930 season progressed Scuderia Ferrari increasingly became seen as the Alfa Romeo factory team . At the end of 1932, as Jano was preparing a new P3 racer, Alfa Romeo decided to withdraw from racing again. Ferrari tried to get his hands on the P3s but was refused. As rivals Maserati and Bugatti had better machinery Ferrari lost all his top drivers as the team struggled on with old Alfas. Eventually Alfa Romeo management relented and the P3s were delivered to Modena. Bazzi and Alfa test driver Attilio Marinoni left Alfa Romeo to join the Scuderia and Ferrari hired Luigi Fagioli and the veteran Campari to be his drivers. The team was immediately successful but at Monza in September Campari was killed in one of the cars. The same accident claimed the life of former Ferrari driver Borzacchini.
At the end of the year Alfa Romeo handed over the entire racing department to Ferrari. He hired Achille Varzi , Louis Chiron and Carlo Trossi (a partner in the team) with Algerians Guy Moll and Marcel Lehoux as second string drivers. The rise of the German manufacturers would make it increasingly difficult for Ferrari to compete at Grand Prix level. Moll won at Monaco that year but was killed a few months later at Pescara. At the end of the year Varzi left to join AutoUnion. Ferrari managed to convince Nuvolari to return and hired Rene Dreyfus to be his partner alongside Chiron. That year Nuvolari scored a famous and outstanding victory against the Germans at the Nurburgring in the old Alfa Romeo P3.
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