Nanni Galli

To the best of my knowledge Fruit of the loom was an Italian company (big in the 80's, gone now) and Galli is the owner.

It's with great sadness that I you the sad news of the demise of Nanni Galli. Widely known for his Sport-Prototypes and Touring Car performances, he also delivered some interesting performances with udnerperforming F1 machinery.

Nanni Galli passed away today, shortly after completing 79 years.

It's with great sadness that I you the sad news of the demise of Nanni Galli. Widely known for his Sport-Prototypes and Touring Car performances, he also delivered some interesting performances with udnerperforming F1 machinery.

Nanni Galli passed away today, shortly after completing 79 years.

Very sad indeed - R.I.P.  I think he was one of that group of Italian endurance specialists (I'm thinking Merzario and Giunti in particular) who are underrated and almost unknown by modern fans due to not having won GPs, yet they were, as we TNFers are aware, fantastic specialists in an era when endurance racing was a very different form of motorsport from Formula 1.

Nanni was only born in Bologna, where his father had a business activity, but was 100% from Prato: origins, family and where he lived.

Sad news - a charming man and a very capable racing driver...  RIP.

DCN

Nanni was only born in Bologna, where his father had a business activity, but was 100% from Prato: origins, family and where he lived.

That's right. "Nanni" was really  "the Champ of Prato". His Father and mother were both from Prato or its nearby. He was born in Bologna in 1940, only because at the time his father lived here for business and "Nanni" remained in Bologna only in the early years of his life.

Originally posted by Paolo
To the best of my knowledge Fruit of the loom was an Italian company (big in the '80s, gone now) and Galli is the owner.

It wasn't just Lotus Cortinas which 3-wheeled round corners. I watched the 1966 Snetterton 500kms and the Alfa GTAs did the same thing. Nanni Galli was a joy to watch, but was rather outdone by a certain J Rindt.

Some years after this post was made I purchased some 'Fruit of the Loom' products...

And I still see them advertised. They are a brand that appears to be owned by Walmart.

Very good socks, too.

And Galli was (as mentioned in obituaries) one of the Italian distributors for this brand. We discussed it in 2006...

It wasn't just Lotus Cortinas which 3-wheeled round corners. I watched the 1966 Snetterton 500kms and the Alfa GTAs did the same thing. Nanni Galli was a joy to watch, but was rather outdone by a certain J Rindt.

I've seen pics of Trans Am Alfas doin it and personally shot Al Horbert's IMSA Porsche RSR flyin the right front coming out of T7 at Road Atlanta.

Edited by JacnGille, 16 October 2019 - 19:24.

I'm sorry to hear of Nanni Galli's passing. Although I was only 13 years old at the time, I still retain vivid memories of Galli giving a truly exuberant performance in an Autodelta 2000GTAm in the 1970 TT at Silverstone. Instant 'schoolboy hero' stuff....... 

I have a number of photos I took of Lotus Cortinas racing in SCCA club racing in the US in the late 1960, all with the inside front wheel something like two feet in the air,

Certainly there's no arguing with success, but one has to wonder about the chassis stiffness of a car which corners resembling a dog using a fire hydrant for relief.

I know that this is a Lotus/Chapman design, and that I know very little about suspension design, but it does seem to me that the handling be improved if the chassis were stiff enough to keep all four wheels in contact with the track for the entire lap?

I know that this is a Lotus/Chapman design, and that I know very little about suspension design, but it does seem to me that the handling be improved if the chassis were stiff enough to keep all four wheels in contact with the track for the entire lap?

For independent suspension, the inside wheel lifts when all of the cornering load has been transferred to the outside. At the same time, spring compression pushes the outside corner of the car down and the inside corner goes up. We can conclude that the front of the Cortina was resistant in lateral bending to bear at least its own weight. If the front was "soggy" the inside wheel would remain in contact with the road without bearing any load.

Sorry . . . .