Francesco Baracca´s personal insignia

[Volker_Nemsch]

Actually FERRARI is sending persons arround looking for illegal use of the "jumping black horse on a yellow background". In a newspaper article someone mentioned the origin of this insignia:

In 1916 Francesco Baracca choose the jumping horse as personal insignia after shooting down a German aircraft. The personal insignia of the victim was the "shield of Stuttgart" (a black jumping horse on a yellow background)! You will find it today in the middle of every Porsche sign, because Porsche is producing the cars in this city.

From this point of view is it illegal for Ferrari to use the much older shield of Stuttgart?

But Volker didn`t Baracca`s widow gift the, by now, personal insignia to old Enzo? but then you know what the italians are like!

[Volker_Nemsch]

Hello Andy,

As far as I know Enzo´s brother served in the same unit as Baracca. After Baracca´s death his widow presented his personal insignia to Enzo Ferrari.

What interests me is: who was the victim of Baracca? He had the shield of Stuttgart painted on his aircraft and so most probably Stuttgart was his hometown.

Any ideas?

[AGO]

Volker,

As far as I know the only German unit to see service on the Italian
front before the Fall of 1917 was FA9b, a Bavarian unit equipped with
Pfalz Parasol aircraft that reached the Alps in the Summer of 1915 and
soon begun bombing Italian targets in the Trentino area employing fake
Austro-Hungarian markings (by that time Italy was still not at war with
Germany so they could not use German markings!) (1).
Everything is possible but it seems very unlikely to me that in 1916
this same unit was still operating on the Italian front.

Now, please let me fix a couple of things,in a most friendly way.

B was not married so I dont' see how an his widow could present
anything to anyone.An unknown secret marriage?
I have never heard before that a brother of Enzo Ferrari was been a
squadronmate of B.Very interesting!!Could you please anybody tell me
what's the source of this information?
B came from Cavalry and was a connoisseur of horses (by coincidence
his personal one was black) and the insignia of his Regiment ("Piemonte
Reale Cavalleria") was a prancing horse.
What is usually accepted in Italy is that he simply choose the insignia
of his regiment,or his personal horse,as the insignia of his aircraft.Please
note that it cannot absolutely be proved that Baracca ever painted the
background of his insignia in yellow! The original insignia that a surviving
one of his SPADs still shows its white background.
The colour yellow is the background colour of the shield of Modena,that,
coincidently,was the land of origin of Ferrari himself.
It is usually again accepted that, after some little changes made to the
the design of the horse itself (the tail was raised; the original one was put
down) Ferrari choose the colour of his City as background of the shield of
the Scuderia.
Could anyone please explain to me too what the Italians are like?

Many thanks.
Regards,
AGO

1)For this particular just see "Pfalz Aircraft of WWI" by Jack Herris,FMP.

[GrzeM]

Andrea!
AFAIK "the Baracca Widow" means mother of Francesco. It is said that she asked Ferrari to take Francesco's sign for his excellent cars.
What the Italians are like? I'm very much interested too, as Poles are often called "the Italians of the North" by some nations

Cheers!
G.

[AGO]

"The Italians of the North"?I didn't know.I hope not to have shown a
polemic spirit with my last question.It was a sincere question,really.
Despite having born in Italy and having spent here all my life up to now
I still don't manage to fully understand the oddity of a people
who have generated both mafia bosses and artists as Michelangelo,lots
of corrupted politicians and people as Saint Francis and whose industries produced
the smallest and perhaps silly cars in the world althogether with the fastest,
expensive and exclusive ones.
But as a aviation enthusiast the main question is always the same.
How did we manage to build up one of the most effective,organized and
powerful Military Aviations during WWI and one of the weakest and backward
during WW2????

Cheers
AGO (!)

All.The quip about Italians was meant to be a joke concerning "anything that is not nailed down is likely to be um..borrowed and not returned The same type goes something like this: Have you heard about the Italian Scout car? One forward speed and fourteen reverse!. Racist and not funny I know :-[.Personally am not a fan of Enzo`s machines but show me a Lamborgini Muira or a twenties Lancia or t`bugger wi`t trident on`t front and i`m yer man

[AGO]

Andy,I'll show you something probably even more interesting.
A detail of a WW1 Lancia of the R.A.F.!
Regards,
AGO