Enzo Ferrari Museum opened in Modena, Italy

One of the most prominent and legendary names in the automobile and racing car industry of the 20th century, Enzo Ferrari has finally arrived home. At the age of 22, Enzo Ferrari sold the house where he was born in, to buy a racecar. Years later and multiple attempts in life to buy back that house, as of Saturday it has become a museum dedicated in his memory.

The Museo Casa Enzo Ferrari built in Modena, Italy, which was recently inaugurated and has no official connection with the brand itself that has its own established Museo in the nearby town of Maranello, Italy. The Enzo Ferrari Museum includes the aforementioned house where Ferrari was born in 1898 as well as a new building designed with a shiny yellow aluminum roof made to look like the hood of a car, air vents and all. A workshop belonging to Enzo Ferrari's father, a carpenter and mechanic for the Italian railway is also attached to the museum.

“I remember coming once to see the house when I was a kid, but it wasn’t with my father because he never wanted to come back,” said Piero Ferrari, Enzo’s son, the auto company’s vice chairman. “He always said that if he couldn’t buy it, he didn’t want to go into a house owned by other people. He asked me if the staircase near the entrance was still there.”

The staircase is indeed still there, leading up to the room where Enzo was born; the Ferraris lived in the house until Enzo was a young adult. Those small, freshly painted rooms now house the offices of the Fondazione Casa Natale Enzo Ferrari, the foundation behind the museum’s construction. The museum starts in the attached workshop, where multimedia presentations recount the life of the racecar driver who made the leap to manufacturer of legendary sports cars.

The project cost close to 18 million euros and was mostly financed by the local authorities, which hope that the museum will attract up to 200,000 visitors each year boosting the regional economy. Famous architect Jan Kaplicky designed the modern building in 2003. However, after Kaplicky's death in 2009, his former colleague Andrea Morgante completed the structure that is inspired by Ferrari cars.

The first exhibit at the Museo Casa Enzo Ferrari will have 21 cars - a mix of Ferraris, Maseratis, Alfa Romeos and Fiats that Enzo Ferrari raced in and built. The second exhibit that will get underway in June will be depict the rivalry between Ferrari and Maserati, which is based in Modena and now also owned by Fiat.