People

Giulio Alfieri

Trained at Innocenti, Giulio Alfieri came to fame in the 1950s as the man who developed the Maserati 250F having worked on the design of the engine with Giaocchino Colombo. He became technical director of Maserati in 1954 the same year in which Juan-Manuel Fangio won the World Championship for the team. That success was repeated in 1957 but at the end of that season Maserati was forced to withdraw from Formula 1, leaving Alfieri's V12 engine undeveloped.

In the years that followed Alfieri built a series of successful sports cars including the Tipo 60 "Birdcage" which enjoyed success in sports car racing and gradually the company flourished again. In 1961 when F1 switched to 1.5-litre regulations Alfieri experimented with the idea of an engine mounted transversely in the rear of the car. The engine was built in 1963 and ran in 1964 but was abandoned when new rules were announced for 1966. Cooper then asked Maserati to design an engine for the new three-litre formula and Alfieri revived the engine he had designed for the 250F and the team won the Mexican GP with John Surtees that year and finished third in the Constructors' title. There was a second victory in South Africa in 1967 with Pedro Rodriguez but the revised engine was not reliable and was eventually replaced by the older version. In 1968 Maserati was sold to Citroen and although the Maserati engines were used in Ligier sportscars, the company was not involved in F1. Alfieri oversaw the design of the Bora sports car, styled by Giorgetto Giugiaro but the company gradually slipped further into trouble with the oil crisis and in May 1975 Maserati was put into liquidation. Alfieri moved to become the technical director of Automobili Lamborghini and redesigned the Countach and the all-new Jalpa. He retired in 1985 and lived in retirement until his death from a brain tumour in March 2002.