People

Luigi Marmiroli

Trained at Ferrari, Marmiroli first made his name in Formula 1 circles with Giacomo Caliri's FLY Studio in Bologna, working on the design of the Minardi Formula 2 cars. In 1983 he was taken on by Autodelta and appointed technical director of the Alfa Romeo Formula 1 team, overseeing the design of the Alfa Romeo 184T. The team has Benetton sponsorship and drivers Riccardo Patrese and Eddie Cheever but the engines were not a success and as a result Carlo Chiti departed and when Marmiroli was offered the job of technical director of Lamborghini, to replace the legendary Giolio Alfieri, he resigned from Alfa Romeo and moved to Bologna. His first task was to oversee the design and production of a car to replace the Countach and the prototype Diablo was ready in May 1986. At the same time Marmiroli developed a Countach engine for Group C racing and this appeared in a Unipart-sponsored car driven by Tiff Needell and Mauro Baldi in the course of 1986.

Lamborghini, however, was in financial difficulties but in April 1987 Chrysler (under Lee Iacocca) bought the company and the Diablo went into full production. At the same time Lamborghini entered F1 again with a Mauro Forghieri-designed V12 engine and the engines proved to be quite successful and one was even run in the back of a McLaren in 1993 but McLaren's decision to switch to Peugeot left Lamborghini with no choice but to leave F1.

Marmiroli remained technical director of Lamborghini until 1996, two years after Chrysler had sold the company on to an Indonesian company called Megatech.