Enzo Ferrari, Italy’s greatest sports car builder and racing pioneer, died at his home in Modena, his auto company announced today. Ferrari, 90, was buried today in a private ceremony..

In a statement, the company said, “Enzo Ferrari serenely ended his earthly life Sunday, Aug. 14.” No cause of death was given, but Ferrari was known to have been suffering from a kidney disease.

The founder and chairman of the company bearing his name that makes luxury sports cars and renowned Formula One racers once dreamed of becoming an opera star or a sportswriter.

No Interest but Cars


But his first love was race cars, and his drivers whipped the prancing black horse on his bright red race cars to victory on every major track in the world.

“I have in fact no interest in life outside racing cars,” he wrote in his autobiography. “I have never gone on a real trip, never taken a holiday. The best holiday for me is spent in my workshops when nearly everybody else is on vacation.”

His factory, in the northern town of Maranello, near Modena, turns out 1,300 cars a year with engines as precise as clockwork.

Hundreds of customers, many titled, all rich, book the Ferrari models years in advance and pay as much as $40,000 to $50,000 for the cars.


Not a Great Driver

Born in February, 1898, Ferrari entered motor racing in 1919 and drove with the Alfa Romeo team for 11 years, winning several races. But he never became a great driver because he could not bear to ruin an engine to win a race.

Still, Ferrari became a racing legend, letting other men win the races for him.

Ferrari founded his Maranello auto works in 1946. At the time, about 400 workers toiled painstakingly on the silvery engines. Some crankshafts were sculpted by hand out of steel, requiring 86 hours of work.


The first Ferrari car made its racing debut in 1947, when the first seven models were sold in Italy.

Ferrari was an avowed agnostic who made no secret of his aversion for the Vatican, which had criticized him for his stoic attitude toward the deaths of his drivers in fiery accidents on the track.

However, in June, Pope John Paul II toured the company’s plant, took a spin in one of the sports cars and spoke by phone for five minutes with the bedridden Ferrari last year.