Grand tourer in the context of Ferrari 250 GTO

Ferrari S.p.A. (/fəˈrɑːri/; Italian: [ferˈraːri]) is an Italian luxury sports car manufacturer based in Maranello. Founded in 1939 by Enzo Ferrari (1898–1988), the company built its first car in 1940, adopted its current name in 1945, and began to produce its current line of road cars in 1947. Ferrari became a public company in 1960, and from 1963 to 2014 it was a subsidiary of Fiat S.p.A. It was spun off from Fiat's successor entity, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, in 2016. The company currently offers a large model range which includes several supercars, grand tourers, and one SUV. Many early Ferraris, dating to the 1950s and 1960s, count among the most expensive cars ever sold at auction.

Throughout its history, the company has been noted for its continued participation in racing, especially in Formula One, where its team, Scuderia Ferrari, is the series' single oldest and most successful. Scuderia Ferrari has raced since 1929, first in Grand Prix events and later in Formula One, where it holds many records. Historically, Ferrari was also highly active in sports car racing, where its cars took many wins in races such as the Mille Miglia, Targa Florio and 24 Hours of Le Mans, as well as several overall victories in the World Sportscar Championship. Scuderia Ferrari fans, commonly called tifosi, are known for their passion and loyalty to the team.

Sports car racing is a form of motorsport road racing that uses sports cars with two seats and enclosed wheels. The cars in question may be either purpose-built sports prototypes, which are the highest level in sports car racing; or grand tourers (GT cars) which, being based on road-going models, are considerably more common, but not as fast. Sports car races are often endurance races run over particularly long distances or large amounts of time (generally between 6 and 24 hours), resulting in an emphasis on reliability and efficiency of the car and its drivers over outright car performance or driver skills. The FIA World Endurance Championship and IMSA SportsCar Championship are some of the best-known sports car racing series, and so is the GT World Challenge. Sports car racing is one of the main types of circuit auto racing, alongside open-wheel racing (such as Formula One and Indycar), touring car racing (such as BTCC and V8 Supercars, which is based on 'saloon cars' as opposed to the 'exotics' seen in sports cars) and stock car racing (such as NASCAR).

A hybrid of the purism of open-wheelers and the familiarity of touring car racing, sports car racing is commonly associated with the annual 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race. First run in 1923, Le Mans is one of the longest-running motor races. Well-known defunct sports car races include the Italian classics, the Targa Florio (1906–1977) and Mille Miglia (1927–1957), and the Mexican Carrera Panamericana (1950–1954). Most top-class sports car races focus more on endurance and strategy than pure speed or skills, and longer races usually involve complex pit strategies and regular driver changes. As a result, sports car racing is seen more as a team endeavour than an individual sport, with team managers such as John Wyer, Tom Walkinshaw, driver-turned-constructor Henri Pescarolo, Peter Sauber and Reinhold Joest becoming almost as famous as some of their drivers.

The Mille Miglia (Italian pronunciation: [ˈmille ˈmiʎʎa], Thousand Miles) was an open-road, motorsport endurance race established in 1927 by the young Counts Francesco Mazzotti and Aymo Maggi. It took place in Italy 24 times from 1927 to 1957 (13 times before World War II, and 11 times from 1947).

Like the older Targa Florio and later the Carrera Panamericana in Mexico, the MM made grand tourers like Alfa Romeo, BMW, Ferrari, Maserati, Mercedes-Benz, and Porsche famous. The race brought out an estimated 5 million spectators.

The Rolls-Royce Spectre is a full-sized luxury electric grand tourer manufactured by Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. The Spectre was formally launched in Napa Valley, California in 2023. The first deliveries of the car were made in the last quarter of 2023.

It is Rolls-Royce's first electric vehicle (EV) and rides on the same platform as the Phantom and Cullinan.

Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings PLC (/ˈæstən/) is a British manufacturer of luxury sports cars and grand tourers. Its predecessor was founded in 1913 by Lionel Martin and Robert Bamford. Headed from 1947 by David Brown, it became associated with expensive grand touring cars in the 1950s and 1960s, and with the fictional character James Bond following his use of a DB5 model in the 1964 film Goldfinger. Their grand tourers and sports cars are regarded as a British cultural icon.

Aston Martin has held a royal warrant as purveyor of motorcars to Charles III (as Prince of Wales and later as King) since 1982, and has over 160 car dealerships in 53 countries, making it a global automobile brand. The company is traded on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. In 2003 it received the Queen's Award for Enterprise for outstanding contribution to international trade. The company has survived seven bankruptcies throughout its history.

A sports prototype, sometimes referred to simply as a prototype, is a type of race car that is used in high-level categories of sports car racing. They are purpose-built auto-sports race cars, as opposed to production-car based or street-legal, low-volume homologation specials – thus entirely not intended for consumer purchase, or production beyond the fabrication of the (nearly) unique cars entered into races and in race-car competition classes or "formulas", with sufficiently open regulations to allow for vehicles of unique design to partake.

Prototype racing cars have competed in sports car racing since before World War II, but became the top echelon of sports cars in the 1960s as they began to replace homologated sports cars. Current ACO regulations allow most sports car series to use two forms of cars: grand tourers (GT cars), which are strictly based on production street cars, and sports prototypes, which are allowed a great amount of flexibility within set rule parameters.

The FIA World Endurance Championship, abbreviated as WEC, is a world championship for automobile endurance racing organized by the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) and sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The series supersedes the ACO's former Intercontinental Le Mans Cup which began in 2010 and is the revival of the World Sportscar Championship which ended after the 1992 season. The World Endurance Championship name was previously used by the FIA from 1981 to 1985.

The series features multiple classes of cars competing in endurance races, with sports prototypes competing in the Hypercar class (LMH or LMDh), and production-based grand tourers (GT cars) competing in the LM GT3 category. World champion titles are awarded to the top-scoring drivers and manufacturers over the season, while other cups and trophies will be awarded for drivers and private teams.

Petit Le Mans (French for Little Le Mans) is a sports car endurance race held annually at Road Atlanta in Braselton, Georgia, United States. The race has been held for a duration of 10 hours since 2014, having previously been held for either 1,000 miles (1,600 km) or 10 hours, whichever came first. In addition to the overall race, teams compete for class victories in different categories, divided into prototypes and grand tourers.

The race was founded by Road Atlanta owner Don Panoz to bring the rules and spirit of the 24 Hours of Le Mans to North America. The success of the inaugural event in 1998, held as part of the IMSA season with a special one-off format, led to the creation of the American Le Mans Series in 1999 with a similar formula. Petit Le Mans was a flagship event for the ALMS, which became the most prominent top-class sports car racing series during the 2000s. The 2010 and 2011 editions were also part of the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup, the precursor of the World Endurance Championship. Since 2014 the race has been one of the crown jewel events of the IMSA SportsCar Championship. Class winners of the event originally received an automatic invitation to the following year's 24 Hours of Le Mans, however this was removed in 2012.

The Nürburgring 24 Hours is a 24-hour annual touring car and GT endurance racing event that takes place on a combination of the Nordschleife ("North Loop") and the GP-Strecke ("Grand Prix track") circuits of the Nürburgring in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Held since 1970, the over 25.3 km (15.7 mi) lap length allows more than 200 cars and over 700 drivers to participate.

Starting in 2024, the event has been officially named ADAC RAVENOL 24h Nürburgring for sponsorship reasons. Furthermore, the 2024 season of the race was included in the Intercontinental GT Challenge calendar.

The Ferrari California (Type F149) is a grand touring, high performance sports car created by the Italian automobile manufacturer Ferrari. It is a two-door 2+2 hard top convertible. When originally unveiled in 2008, the California was powered by a front-mid mounted, rear wheel drive, naturally aspirated 4.3-litre V8. In 2012, a lighter, slightly more powerful variant, the California 30, was introduced. In 2014, Ferrari announced the second generation of the model, named California T powered by a new twin-turbo 3.9-litre V8.

The car revives the name used on the late-1950s Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder and the 1960s 365 California. The modern California (2008) was originally introduced as an entry-level model; however, it included many new design innovations from Ferrari. The original base price of the California was similar to the base price of the F430, the company's V8 flagship sports car at the time of its introduction. In 2018, the California was succeeded by the Portofino.

The Ferrari 250 is a series of sports cars and grand tourers built by Ferrari from 1952 to 1964. The company's most successful early line, the 250 series includes many variants designed for road use or sports car racing. 250 series cars are characterised by their use of a 3.0 L (2,953 cc) Colombo V12 engine designed by Gioacchino Colombo. The 250 series designation refers to this engine's cylinder displacement of approximately 250 cc. They were replaced by the 275 and 330 series cars.

The Aston Martin DB5 is a British grand tourer (GT) produced by Aston Martin and designed by Italian coachbuilder Carrozzeria Touring Superleggera. Originally produced from 1963 to 1965, the DB5 was an evolution of the final series of DB4. The "DB" designation is from the initials of David Brown who built up the company from 1947 onwards.

The DB5 is best-known for its role in the James Bond films. It was first driven by the fictional spy in the film Goldfinger (1964). In 2013, the car featured on a "British Auto Legends" postage stamp issued by the Royal Mail.

The IMSA SportsCar Championship, currently known as the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship under sponsorship, is a sports car racing series based in the United States and Canada and organized by the International Motor Sports Association (IMSA). It is considered the pinnacle of sports car racing in North America, attracting top-tier manufacturers, teams and drivers. The championship features prototypes and GT cars competing across various classes and consists of both long-distance endurance races and shorter sprint races.

The series traces its roots to the IMSA GT Championship, which began in 1971 and ran until 1998. From the late 1990s until 2013, top-level sports car racing in North America was split between the high-tech American Le Mans Series and the low-cost Rolex Sports Car Series. These two series were merged in 2014 to form the United SportsCar Championship, which was subsequently renamed as the IMSA SportsCar Championship in 2016. Rolex SA's Tudor brand was the title sponsor of the championship in 2014 and 2015, and WeatherTech has served as title sponsor since 2016.

The 2012 FIA World Endurance Championship was the inaugural running of the World Endurance Championship. It was co-organised by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) and the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO). The series replaced the former Intercontinental Le Mans Cup held by the ACO from 2010 to 2011. The series was open to Le Mans Prototypes and grand tourer-based racing cars meeting four ACO categories. Several championships, cups, and trophies were awarded in the series' four categories following an eight race season, with a World Championship available to the top scoring drivers and LMP1 category manufacturer.

Following a partial-season match-up against newcomers Toyota, Audi won the Manufacturers' World Championship, while the company's driver line-up of André Lotterer of Germany, Benoît Tréluyer of France, and Marcel Fässler of Switzerland earned the Drivers' World Championship ahead of their teammates Allan McNish and Tom Kristensen. Toyota's Alexander Wurz and Nicolas Lapierre were third in the Drivers' Championship standings. Ferrari defending their two Intercontinental Le Mans Cup LMGTE manufacturers title with the Manufacturers' World Cup, outscoring Porsche and Corvette. In the four FIA Trophies for the four categories in the championship, Rebellion Racing won the LMP1 Privateers title, while Starworks Motorsport secured the LMP2 championship; AF Corse won the LMGTE Pro category for the second season in a row, as did Larbre Compétition in LMGTE Am.