One location and 21 iconic Ferraris - museum honours the cars of Italian family business

Sports car fans in Italy are perhaps riding high – it isn’t often that some of the most famous Ferrari cars in the world are found in one place. But that’s what has happened at the Enzo Ferrari Birthplace Museum.

Based in Modena in Italy, the museum honours Enzo Ferrari, the founder of the eponymous sports car, which is today part of family business automobile giant Fiat.

Enzo, who was famous not only for founding Ferrari but also for being a racing car driver, died in 1988 aged 90. The museum includes the house where Enzo was born, as well as a new building with a shiny yellow roof, shaped like the bonnet of a Ferrari.

The first exhibition at the museum, whose doors opened on 10 March, houses 21 cars – a mix of Ferraris, Maseratis and Fiats raced in and built by Enzo. It also includes a 1914 Alfa Romeo 40-60 and a Ferrari 125S from 1947 – the first car to carry the Ferrari name.

While the museum should prove popular with Ferrari lovers around the world, perhaps one heir of parent company Fiat will be less inclined to celebrate the famous sports car.

Lapo Elkann, grandson of the founder of Fiat, made headlines on 13 March for running out of fuel – in his Ferrari.

The 35-year-old’s €200,000 camouflage-coloured Ferrari came to a halt en route from Milan to Genoa. This was despite there being a petrol station roughly every 20 miles along the way.