10 replies to this topic

[Barry Lake]

Recently I have been doing some research on Maserati and discovered that I do not have complete dates of birth and death for the Maserati Brothers - even after searching through the most comprehensive Maserati books.

What I have so far is:

Carlo Maserati, born 1881 (Day? Month?), died (Day? Month? Year?)
Bindo Maserati, born 1883 (Day? Month?), died September 1980 (Day?)
Alfieri Maserati, born 1887 (Day? Month?), died 3rd March 1932
Mario Maserati, born 1890 (Day? Month?), died (Day? Month? Year?)
Ettore Maserati, born 1894 (Day? Month?), died 4th August 1990.
Ernesto Maserati, born 4th April 1898, died 1st December 1975.

Can anyone fill in any of the gaps, including place of death and perhaps cause of death?

[Vitesse2]

Alfieri died of complications following an operation, which apparently was to correct problems caused in his crash in the 1927 Coppa Messina. (Venables, Racing 1500s p21 & p188)

[David McKinney]

Carlo died 1910
I have Bindo's death in 1990 - my typo or yours?

[Barry Lake]

Bindo died 1980, aged 97 years.

If still alive in 1990, he would have been 107 years old.

I suspect the typo is yours.

Thanks for the year for Carlo's death. That is in some of the books, but I had forgotten to write it down and going back to check it seemed just too hard at the time.

In case anyone is interested, Carlo's death was from illness at the tender age of 29. (Was it influenza?) He had been quite a successful racing driver and some have suggested he was the most talented engineer of them all.

[alessandro silva]

A seventh child, "the first Alfieri" was born in 1885, he lived a few days (or hours?).

[ReWind]

The dates I have for the Maserati brothers (apparently all born in Voghera, Pavia) are the following:

Carlo:
b. 1881, d. 1910
Bindo:
b. 1883; thank you, Barry, for the hint on his date of death
Alfieri:
b. 23 September 1887, d. 03 March 1932
Mario:
b. 1890, d. 1981 (this is the artist with no connection to automobile racing)
Ettore:
b. 1894, d. 04 August 1990 (on his brother`s birthday)
Ernesto:
b. 04 August (instead of April) 1898,
d. 24 November or 01 December 1975
in Bologna (can anyone clarify which date is correct?)

[Barry Lake]

Poor Ernesto! No certainty as yet on either his birth date or his date of death.

I had seen the two dates for each, but wanted to see what others had.

It seems odd to me that full dates are not widely known for souls so significant to the history of motor racing.

[KJJ]

The Times ( 2nd December 1975) has Ernesto dying on the 1st December 1975, aged 77

[lustigson]

Interesting! I didn't know there were so many Maserati brothers? Which one(s) is (was) the founder(s) of the Maserati car company?

[David McKinney]

Originally posted by lustigson
Interesting! I didn't know there were so many Maserati brothers? Which one(s) is (was) the founder(s) of the Maserati car company?

The company was called Officine Alfieri Maserati, if that's any help

[WGD706]

Originally posted by lustigson
Interesting! I didn't know there were so many Maserati brothers? Which one(s) is (was) the founder(s) of the Maserati car company?

Alfieri Maserati and his brother Ettore were both employed at Isotta-Fraschini when they decided to establish their own race-tuning business in 1914. The war delayed activity with 16-year Ernesto Maserati being left in charge but when the brothers returned they began to tune cars and Alfieri raced them. This led to an alliance with the Diatto company and in 1925 the Maserati Brothers designed a Grand Prix car for Diatto. It was never built and the Maseratis decided to build their own instead. The car was debuted on the Targa Florio in 1926 and won its class. They began building customer cars to help fund their own racing activities.

In March 1932 Alfieri died of kidney problems but Bindo left Isotta Fraschini and joined Ettore and Ernesto and they continued the work begun by their brother. Opposition from Alfa Romeo and the growing might of the German companies made winning Grands Prix harder and harder and by the late 1930s the company was in financial trouble and the brothers agreed to hand over their shares to Adolfo Orsi, an industrialist from Modena. The deal gave them technical control of the company for 10 years. Free from worries of management they concentrated on engineering. Although the war came and the Orsi Family gradually edged them out, the Maserati brothers enjoyed a string of victories at the Indianapolis 500. As the war progressed, however, Maserati had to move into the production of trucks.

In 1946 the Maserati Brothers left the company and set up OSCA.
http://www.grandprix.../con-maser.html