AUTO AVIО CONSTRUZIONI, Modena, Italy, 1939-1940


It is unlikely that this small company would ever fall into the automotive history if its founder were not the world famous Enzo Ferrari. Until 1939, he led the Alfa Romeo racing team. Leaving her in order to create his own high-speed car, he founded a company in Modena called AUTO AVIO CONSTRUZIONI. Her field of activity is the production of machine tools. This riddle was explained simply: “Ferrari promised the leadership of Alfa Romeo’ for four years not only to not produce its own cars, but also not to assign licensed models to its name.
In fact, Ferrari immediately took up the creation of two sports cars, although officially the author of the project was the engineer Alberto Massimino. One car was meant for the racer Alberto Ascari, the other for the marquis Lotario Rangoni. They were 8-cylinder engines in 1496 cm3, composed of two 4-cylinder blocks with heads from the passenger FIAT-508. Cars received the designation “815”: 8 - the number of cylinders, 15 - 1.5-liter engine. In 1940, both took part in the Mille Miglia race in the Brescia region. Despite the fact that Ascari and Rangoni led the race among the crews in their class, none of them came to the finish line.
With the beginning of the war, all the work was stopped. Ferrari could continue them only after it was completed. This time the company was named after its founder. The first cars were called “Ferrari-815".

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