35 replies to this topic

[Redliner]

This is a question about Ludovico Scarfiotti, the only Italian to have won the Italian Grand Prix for Ferrari, (is this correct?). Today I heard a rumour that he was killed when driving off the road to avoid another competitor, any truth in this?

[Vitesse2]

Don't think so: Scarfiotti was killed in practice for a hillclimb on June 8th 1968. At Rossfeld, to be precise. He went straight on at a corner and crashed into some trees.

[David McKinney]

Italian drivers to have won the Italian GP for Ferrari:
Fagioli (1933)
Ascari (1951, 1952)
Scarfiotti (1966)

[Ray Bell]

Maybe he ran off the road to avoid a spectator?

[Doug Nye]

Two Porsche team cars crashed in quick succession on the hill, though running merely against the clock, having set off in the conventional hill-climb time-lapse manner...both drivers injured, 'Lulu' fatally?

DCN

[Ray Bell]

Then it may be that changes were made to both cars that didn't suit the circumstances as well as they thought they might?

[Barry Lake]

Michael Ferner (Fines) has posted a complete description of the Scarfiotti fatal crash on another thread somewhere.

[Hans Etzrodt]

Extract from PORSCHE Excellence Was Expected by Karl Ludvigsen:

“Three such new cars were made [Porsche Type 771, 1968 Bergspyder; 2-liter, 8-cylinder, 275 hp @ 9200 rpm, curb weight 902 pounds] because Porsche planned a three-pronged assault on the hills of Europe. Added to the 1967 team of Mitter and Stommelen was the popular driver who had been Porsche's chief rival in seasons past, "Lulu" Scarfiotti. In the order Mitter-Scarfiotti-Stommelen they swept the first climb in Montseny. The next event, a week later on June 9th at Rossfeld, Germany, was catastrophic for Porsche.

“Helmut Schneider, in Autosport, described what happened during the second practice session at Rossfeld: "Stommelen's car dived off the road and demolished itself among the trees; the driver escaped with a broken arm. He was alleged to have told a marshal that the steering had broken. A few minutes later, a little farther down the hill at the exit of a long right fast right-hander, two black tire lines showed where poor Scarfiotti had gone off, brakes locked, into the woods. The Porsche folded up against the tree and he was thrown out and killed instantly." Mitter, sole survivor of the team, won the subsequent event.

“Because the company's hill-climb cars were famous for their light construction, Porsche reacted with extreme and tasteless defensiveness against suggestions that Scarfiotti's crash might have been caused by a fault in the car. A thorough inquest found no evidence that anything on the chassis has broken of that the throttle had jammed open before the accident. No specific cause was ever found for the crash that killed Scarfiotti, who was then by far the most able and respected Italian driver. In his death, Porsche settled a long overdue debt to this bitterly demanding sport: Scarfiotti was the first driver to die at the wheel of a factory-entered Porsche. It was astonishing, and a credit to the firm's standards of construction and preparation, that Porsche had raced so long and so far before paying this inevitable price.”

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted.....
Michael Ferner (Fines) has posted a complete description of the Scarfiotti fatal crash on another thread somewhere.

From the 'Ultimate Price' thread...

http://www.atlasf1.c...=&postid=194557

Porsche must have come close at times, by the way... Behra's car was probably a works-backed car if not works-entered, for instance... later experience sure added to the toll, too.

[Carlos Jalife]

I read somewhere -rather my italian girlfriend translated since I couldn't understand some stuff-that Ludovico crashed trying to avoid Stomelenn who had crashed a few seconds and meters earlier, and was lying in the middle of a turn, I don't know if with the car or thrown out, but that Porsche didn't want to make it a bigger issue, but I read it in some italian magazine not actually a car magazine a long time ago and the article was a bit like an exposé on Ludovicos death which had something to do with his being connected to the Agnellis. It was some sort of conspiration theory about Porsche versus FIAT and I read it in 1975 so I don't even recall the name of the magazine. Of course I didn't pay much attention to it but, figured it sounded worth mentioning.

[fines]

Interesting, Carlos, I've never heard that! My info is that Stommelen crashed at km 3.2, and Scarfiotti seconds later at km 2.4!!!?

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by Carlos Jalife
....I don't know if with the car or thrown out....

Could have been either, Niel Allen's big crash was not till 27th July. Belts were not widely used until then.

[Carlos Jalife]

Well at least the time is right -seconds later- , but the distance is impossible to bridge, specially since it was before not after. And frankly, I don't even have an idea of the terrain but I figured it was something interesting.

[tyrrellp34]

Does anybody knows where exactly it happened at the Rossfeld??

I am living very close to the Rossfeld and want to know where it happened.

[Yorgos]

Here is the description of the accident in that week's Auto Italiana, titled "Scarfiotti Betrayed by the Mountain":
"That section of the course was considered easy. It was at the end of a straight before a right turn (the 4th from the start line). Nobody wittnessed the accident which was re-created based on the skid marks left by the car on the road. From these traces it was seen that the Italian driven was proceeding at a calculated speed of 130-140 kmh and braked 60m before the turn. The straight black marks left by the Porsche wheels were interrupted at the point where the road turns right. There the car went straight off the road and hit the trees. The driver was projected out of the car, hit the trees and stopped some meters downhill. Scarfiotti suffered serious head injuries and by the time the ambulance arrived, there was nothing more to do.
The technicians were wondering what had happened. What was the reason of the 60m long brake marks. Scarfiotti knew well both the route and the car. In the morning before starting the practice he was calm and relaxed. Probably the accident will remain unexplained like so many. However still on Saturday morning, a while after Scarfiotti's accident, another Porsche driver, Rolf Stommelen went off the road in a similar car, suffering some wounds and fractures. Stommelen was luckier than our driver because he finished his flight among the bushes."

Yorgos

[Nanni Dietrich]

Just yesterday I've found an other article in that old Auto Italiana magazine Yorgos refered, in which there are some questions I've never heard before: the journalist seems to allude to "personal problems" Scarfiotti suffered in those days, something about "rumours, spreaded by the press to undermine his family serenity". Scarfiotti, the journalist wrote, was upset, under stress the days of his fatal accident (I've thought something similar to Gilles Villeneuve in May 1982).
I really don't know anything about this fact. I know Scarfiotti had big troubles when he left the Scuderia, when he run the Dan Gurney's Eagle at Monza and when he passed to the "enemy" Porsche. But all these facts happened some eight months before.
What really happened to Lulù in spring 1968?

[Stephen W]

I was at Monaco the week-end before the accident. Scarfiotti was drving for the Cooper Works Team and in practice broke down in Casino Square opposite the grandstand I was in. He hopped out of the car, took off his crash helmet, waved to the crowd and bummed a cigarette off a photographer. He then sat smoking the cigarette and chatting to the marshals and photographers. He seemed perfectly relaxed and had no problem I could see with the press.

I was deeply saddened to learn of his death as he was one of te great characters of our sport.

[Boniver]

1925 Circuito del Garda
10 Luigi Scarfiotti Bugatti 22

Luigi Scarfiotte racing also Alfa Romeo sport car in 1925

and 1932 the Mille Miglia - 3° with Alfa Romeo Scud. Ferrari


Maby it was the father of Ludo Scarfiotti

[ozzy.g]

Originally posted by David McKinney
Italian drivers to have won the Italian GP for Ferrari:
Fagioli (1933)
Ascari (1951, 1952)
Scarfiotti (1966)

Fagioli in 1933 is very hard to believe. Ferrari was born in 1947.
Unless, maybe, you wanted to say for Enzo Ferrari and not ON a Ferrari.

P.S. Yes, I know I have to reply to someone (also someone who called for my comment) in other threads (remember, Portago/de Portago? ), but I am also reading every posts of this wonderful forum not to be repetitive in my own post.
And to learn a lot of things too!;)
It takes time...

[David McKinney]

Originally posted by ozzy.g

Fagioli in 1933 is very hard to believe. Ferrari was born in 1947.
Unless, maybe, you wanted to say for Enzo Ferrari and not ON a Ferrari.

Not a matter of what I wanted to say, ozzy, but what the original poster wanted to say
He did say "for Ferrari", and so did my response
(Even though I probably realised he meant "in a Ferrari" )

[Ralliart]

Since we're talking about this poor man, what is the correct spelling of his name? I've seen it as Ludovico and Lodovico.

[Arjan de Roos]

Just like Premat is winning for DAMS (Driot).

(How often is it overlooked in statisticts who prepared the car, sometimes more important than chassis and engine together, sigh)

Originally posted by David McKinney

Not a matter of what I wanted to say, ozzy, but what the original poster wanted to say
He did say "for Ferrari", and so did my response
(Even though I probably realised he meant "in a Ferrari" )

[Nanni Dietrich]

Originally posted by Ralliart
Since we're talking about this poor man, what is the correct spelling of his name? I've seen it as Ludovico and Lodovico.

This is an hoary question (we've already discussed about this in TNF, someone of us has pictures with Lu and with Lo). I have a special source in the Municipality of Porto Recanati, the small town in Marche region in which Scarfiotti lived during all his life, and where I think is his burial place: there is an avenue in Porto Recanati named definitely "Viale Lodovico Scarfiotti", with the O.

[ozzy.g]

It should be Lodovico. At least from what I always knew.
The mistake is due to the fact that both names are used here in Italy (my uncle is called Ludovico, for example) and so in past tenses and also in recent days there have been always someone who wrote the wrong one because of "oral tradition" (Ludovico is indeed more common).

[David McKinney]

I would certainly accept the word of Italian TNFers on this, though English-language publications seemed to settle to Ludovico...

As a matter of interest, typing "Lodovico Scarfiotti" into google produces 414 mentions, against 14,300 for "Ludovico Scarfiotti"

[alessandro silva]

David, it is definitely LOdovico.
[Sorry about English-languafe publications].

[ozzy.g]

Originally posted by David McKinney
I would certainly accept the word of Italian TNFers on this, though English-language publications seemed to settle to Ludovico...

As a matter of interest, typing "Lodovico Scarfiotti" into google produces 414 mentions, against 14,300 for "Ludovico Scarfiotti"

Well, nobody is perfect...

Seriously, English publications and internet are wrong, but I think that it is because of "too sure of their Italian" people from Italy as I was trying to explain.

By the way, I guess there is another similar "mystery", but I still haven't resolved it.
In different publications (both Italian and English) and in Internet I found three different way to call the Osella mechanic Reutemann hit at Zolder in 1981:

Amodeo
Amedeo
Amadeo

The first two are a little more common than the third, but the second is a lot more used as name than as surname.
Which is the correct one?

[ReWind]

Originally posted by alessandro silva
It is definitely LOdovico.

AFAIK Scarfiotti had two nicknames: „Lulù“ and „Dodo“.
I don’t understand the first one if his name wasn’t Ludovico.

Originally posted by Boniver
1925 Circuito del Garda
10 Luigi Scarfiotti Bugatti 22

Luigi Scarfiotte racing also Alfa Romeo sport car in 1925
and 1932 the Mille Miglia - 3° with Alfa Romeo Scud. Ferrari

Maby it was the father of Ludo Scarfiotti

Your presumption is seconded by an Italian source:

From „Conoscere la Formula 1“ by Pino Allievi, 1984 (vol. 2 p. 264)
Nipote del primo presidente della FIAT nel 1899 e figlio di uno dei piloti della „Scuderia Ferrari“ all’esordio di quest’ultima nel 1930, Lodovico Scarfiotti era senz’altro destinato a correre e a correre con la Ferrari. Per la Casa modenese Scarfiotti vince anzitutto due campionati europei della Montagna, nel 1962 e nel 1965, e poi colleziona anche cinque successi in gare valide per il campionato mondiale marche. Meno brillante, con una sola splendida eccezione, la sua carriera sulle monoposto sia Ferrari che Cooper. L’eccezione è la magnifica vittoria di Scarfiotti nel GP d’Italia del 1966, rimasta a tutto il 1983 l’ultimo successo interamente italiano in una corsa iridata. Quel giorno infatti il torinese è alla guida della Ferrari 312/0012, con la quale segna anche il giro più veloce in gara a 224,025 km/h. L’abilità di Scarfiotti è confermata dal fatto che in F1 il pilota è costretto al ritiro in sole tre occasioni, oltre che dai brillanti risultati in gare con le vetture a ruote coperte.

[alessandro silva]

Reinhard,
if you want to call him Ludovico or Theophylous, you might. I am for a free world. The point is, and it is not a presumption but the truth, that his name was Lodovico.

Scarfiotti's father was one of Ferari's earliest customers, who tended his Alfas at the Scuderia.
Scarfiotti's grandfather was one of FIAT founders.

[ReWind]

Originally posted by alessandro silva
Reinhard,
if you want to call him Ludovico or Theophylous, you might. I am for a free world. The point is, and it is not a presumption but the truth, that his name was Lodovico.

Of course I want to call him by his real name. I'm just puzzled where "Lulù" comes from when there is no "Lu" in his name.

The presumption I referred to was Boniver's (not your statement).

Scarfiotti's grandfather was one of FIAT founders.

Doesn't "nipote" (from Pino Allievi's little piece) mean "nephew"?

[macoran]

Pffff you guys go to a lot of detail.
I posted something last week and tried to go into detail saying I am Dutch and not.................
The whole post has been wiped...
So I'll stop while I am at it
Cheers...

[Mischa Bijenhof]

Originally posted by macoran
Pffff you guys go to a lot of detail.
I posted something last week and tried to go into detail saying I am Dutch and not.................
The whole post has been wiped...
So I'll stop while I am at it
Cheers...

[alessandro silva]

Reinhard,
"nipote" is both nephew and grandson.

[Rob Semmeling]

One more question: did Scarfiotti drive a 'old' 910 Spyder or a 'new' 909?

[Nanni Dietrich]

Originally posted by Rob Semmeling
One more question: did Scarfiotti drive a 'old' 910 Spyder or a 'new' 909?

The day of the accident he drove a Porsche Type 771, 910/1968 Bergspyder 2-liter, 8-cylinder.
Not surely the 909 "egg" type.

About the name I totally agree with Alessandro: his name was Lodovico and that's that.
The fact that google has 414 Lodovico and 15000 Ludovico is not an evidence: sometime the web references are self-quotations.
About the nickname "Lulù" that seems to be derived from Ludovico more than Lodovico, I think is just a case: as Ozzy.g said, both names are used in Italy and Ludovico is more common, more popular and perhaps more used by "oral tradition". Lodovico is perhaps a more "formal" use.

OT
The young mechanic killed at Zolder 1981 was definitely Giovanni Amadeo.

[David McKinney]

Originally posted by Nanni Dietrich

The fact that google has 414 Lodovico and 15000 Ludovico is not an evidence: sometime the web references are self-quotations.

I wasn't suggesting it was evidence - I had already made clear that I accepted what you and ozzy.g had said (and alessandro since)