Balduzzi, Alfa’s Fast Family P1

By James Lanoway

Two men with different last names, both sharing March 6th as a birthday, one unknowingly looking for a son, the other not looking for another father, came together in Lodi, in the Lombardy region of Italy, in 1958, some say by fate and many say by good fortune. Before the next two decades were out, the older would adopt the younger and give him his last name. With hard work, long hours, and a touch of genius, the younger would make that name one of the most revered in the mystic, esoteric world of Alfa Romeo tuners: Balduzzi.

Born in Milan on March 6, 1943, to parents Cesare and Giuseppina, Santino Granata arrived into the world in troubled times. Europe was at war and in Milan daily bombardments made it treacherous to even register a son’s birth at the local civil registry office. Hence, Cesare did not get his new son registered until the day after he was born. Cesare Granata and Giuseppina Della Valle were originally from the village of Rivolta d’Adda in the Province of Cremona, but a well-paying job at the Pirelli plant had lured Cesare into moving to Milan. Fed up with the constant bombing and food shortages, Cesare and Giuseppina decided a few days after Santino’s birth to move him and his two siblings back to their village. At first, Cesare commuted to his job at Pirelli from Rivolta d’Adda, but after some time, he left Pirelli and moved to the municipality of Dovera, about 10 kilometres away from Rivolta d’Adda, where he opened his own harness-making business. Cesare was certainly familiar with this trade because it was his father’s vocation and he had often helped his father with the work as he was growing up. Horse harnesses in rural Italy were in great demand at the time since all the farmers still used horses for their fieldwork and other chores. Tractors were simply not affordable and besides, there were severe wartime restrictions on all fuel.

Growing up with his brothers Marco and Attilio, Santino realized at an early age that he was different from his brothers and the other children and adults in the village. He was born with a noticeable purple-red angioma covering the left side of his face, something that made him feel out of place with playmates, but which also steeled his determination over his lifetime to excel in whatever he did, to leave others no doubt about his above-average capabilities. As a teenager, he showed a passion for engines and soon developed a taste for the mechanically exotic, as demonstrated by his acquisition of a Motom 48 ciclomotore (moped). The Motom was no ordinary moped, having a 4-stroke overhead valve all-alloy engine designed by Lancia engineer Battista Falchetto and a pressed-steel “X” frame by Pinin Farina. Santino experimented with modifications to the Motom’s engine and learned that the hot set-up was an 11:1 compression ratio, a 19mm Dell’Orto carburetor with a chromed velocity stack and a megaphone exhaust pipe, lessons that no doubt would help him in the future. At the age of 14 or 15, he decided the best way to become a mechanic was to start as a handyman in an auto workshop so he set off to look for such a job in nearby Lodi.

And who was the owner of the workshop in Lodi where Santino came to apply for a job? His name was Giovanni Balduzzi and he was also born on March 6th in Milan but in the year 1919. His mother Emilia Balduzzi had abandoned him at a nearby orphanage at birth, but fortunately he was soon adopted by a childless couple living close to the town of Lodi, in the Lombardy region. As Giovanni grew up, he became fascinated by machinery and he decided to make mechanics his vocation. Giovanni began working at a local Fiat workshop and was very happy with his work life but then the Second World War intervened. At the age of 21, he was assigned to repair various vehicles in the Italian Eighth Army and soon found himself in Mussolini’s Russian campaign. Somehow surviving the bitterly cold winter of 1942-43 on the Russian Front in which 75,000 of his compatriots perished either from the military defeat and frostbite, or from overwork, disease, and malnourishment in captivity, he amazingly walked back to Italy from Russia after the armistice. He soon returned to work as a mechanic at the Esposti Autogarage in Lodi while living with his parents for several years. Then, in 1954, he rented part of a building on Via Felice Cavallotti in Lodi and opened his own automotive repair business. Giovanni worked on all manner of vehicles, including agricultural and vans, but most of the work was on cars, mainly Fiat 600s and 1100s, Lancia Appias and Alfa Romeo Giuliettas. All that changed in 1958 when the younger walked in through the door of the workshop owned by the older and was immediately hired. The bonding process had begun.

During the day, Santino was busy at this workshop while in the evenings he started attending mechanics’ school, where he learned not only the foundations of mechanics but also how to use lathes, milling machines, presses etc. On his time off during the weekends, he worked on his proud possession, his first car: a racy Abarth 850; a heavily modified rear-engined Fiat 600D family sedan with increased displacement, power and handling, thanks to many tuning upgrades and accessories. Santino showed an early interest in motor racing and was fascinated by the lower-level formula cars, such as Formula 3 and 4. In 1965, he took his mechanical skills to another level when he travelled to Torino to the Abarth factory, where he trained on their engines, resulting in Giovanni’s workshop being proclaimed an officially authorized Abarth workshop.

By 1966, their customer numbers had increased enough that Giovanni knew they needed a new facility to accommodate them all. He bought land in the artisanal area of Lodi at 33 Via del Contarico (still the current location of Autofficina Balduzzi S.N.C.) and built a new building where their new workshop opened in 1967. Soon, their reputation as Alfa Romeo tuners began to grow and they became known as specialists who could help your GTA, GTA Junior, or GT Am to win. Santino, with his advanced engine training, looked after the engines while Giovanni helped with the chassis, and both supervised the other 2 or 3 assistants that were employed by the workshop.

After five very fast-paced years in the first half of the seventies with successful racing customers in Italy, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia achieving many victories and podiums, they announced that they were withdrawing from all racing activities at the end of 1975. They continued to serve their many customers with road cars, concentrating mainly on Alfa Romeos, but Santino also continued to do dyno work on a contract basis, for example with an Alfetta 2.0 L Group 2 engine in May of 1976. During the early 70s, Santino not only married the lovely Rosangela with whom he had two children, Ombretta and Cesare, but he also entered into a formal partnership with Giovanni. In 1977, a house was constructed, including a separate bedroom and bathroom for Giovanni, and Santino with his family and Giovanni all came to be living under one roof. Giovanni had become very fond of Santino, having watched this young teenager grow up while working side-by-side with him to make the Balduzzi name renowned. To show his affection and gratitude, Giovanni adopted Santino and so Santino Granata acquired the last name Balduzzi as well. In 1985 Santino took over the full operation of the workshop and continued with the help of his son Cesare and a couple of hired workers, while the aging Giovanni assisted with clean-ups and was happy to entertain the customers. In 1987, Santino’s daughter Ombretta joined the company in an administrative capacity and then in 2001, both Cesare and Ombretta became partners in the Balduzzi workshop with their father.

Santino, meanwhile, had been carrying on his love affair with Alfa Romeo and had busied himself with assisting in development work on the Busso V-6 24-valve 3.2L engines in the late 1990s, and then in 2002 on the new JTS direct-injection engines. Santino enjoyed a close relationship with Eng. Paolo Lanati of Alfa Romeo’s Meccanica Di Arese engine department, which led to Lanati delivering a unique one-off Alfa Romeo 147 with a 2.0 JTS engine to the Balduzzi workshop for Santino to help solve a JTS detonation problem. Electronic Engine Control Units became a normal part of all engines, so Santino also immersed himself in learning this new world and began to reprogram customers’ ECUs, with his wife Rosangela often spending evenings dictating data to him for entering into the units. He also became involved again in racing by assisting with the engines of Alfa 155s racing in the International Touring Car series in England in 1995. As always, customers’ street cars were looked after at the workshop on Via del Contarico, with a steady stream having been attracted by the aura surrounding the Balduzzi name. Santino enjoyed being immersed in his work, and even in his spare time, his “hobby” was directly related to it: he would regularly visit the Alfa Romeo experimental department as well as race tracks such as Monza and Varano. He also usually attended the Vernasca Silver Flag historic motorsport event in Castell’Arquato in Emilia-Romagna where he often was seen with his friend Eng. Lanati.

Acknowledgements: The author wishes to thank the following for their assistance in creating this article: Ombretta Granata Balduzzi, for opening up the Balduzzi Archive to us all, Marcel Renc, for the introduction to Ombretta and for Tvrdý’s race results, “Zagato-Olaf” Roeten, for his GT Am registry and wisdom, automotive historian Nebojsa Djordjevic, for access to his vast Yugoslav race knowledge, Jim Steck of Autocomponenti, for his Balduzzi dyno sheet insights, and Peter Vack for his guidance and patience.