Giulio Borsari has just passed away, at age 87.
During the 2007 Ferrari 60th anniversary event I was walking down Via Emilia in Modena and I passed a little garage. Looking inside, I could see photos of the Scuderia Ferrari building that used to be around the corner. There was an old gentleman alone in the garage reading a newspaper. I entered the shop and indicated I was interested in a closer look at the photos. The old man folded his paper and began speaking Italian. My Italian was worse than his English and we ended up talking about the photos in broken English and Italian and lamenting that the Scuderia Ferrari building had been torn down. The old gentleman was Borsari. What a thrill it was for me. Borsari was one of Phil Hill’s favorite Ferrari mechanics. When I mentioned Hill, Borsari’s face lighted up and he started telling stories. I wish I had had more time and much better Italian. The funeral will be this Friday.–David Seielstad
Thank you, David, for the poignant recollection of Giulio Bosari.
Bosari first worked with Maserati and came to the attention of the legendary Guerino Bertocchi, where Bosari learned the life of a race car mechanic. When Maserati shut its doors, Bosari moved to the Scuderia Centro Sud until joining Ferrari.
He began with Ferrari in 1962 with the promise that he would be the chief F1 mechanic, working on hillclimb cars and sports cars at first. He served as the chief F1 mechanic from 1964 to 1973.
The photo I’ve provided, one of my all-time favorites, was taken by my friend Dick Lees. Bosari is working on a 3-liter flat-12 engine from a Ferrari 312 B2 at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone on July 17, 1971.
It’s sad to see these links to the past go away but then they must but they do provide us with memories and legacies to remember.
I met first time Giulio in the mid-sixties when he was the chief-mechanic of F1 Ferrari Team. I still remember that, during practice for the 1965 Italian GP in Monza, the John Surtees’ 512 was firing badly from the right bank with a trail of smoke. John submitted the car to Giulio, already pushed into the paddock. He looked at the engine, then selected a plug and changed it: one out of 12 (that engine had double ignition). Rattling and smoke suddenly disappeared.
I got acquainted with him in the latest years: every year, he gave me a pocket-size calendar with the F1 schedule and the logo of “Ancient Mechanics”. He was the founder of it, together with Ermanno Crozza. I interviewed him for the Enzo Ferrari Museum in Modena a couple of years ago. The interviews is surely on file somewhere in the Museum. He was always ready to tell his stories in every occasion of public speech or appearance. A great and humble man, ephitome of the times when a real professional had only to do his job without too much fuss, words, visibility.
We ‘ll miss him.
Aldo
I just checked to see if there were additional comments to David Seielstad’s announcement of Guilio Borsari’s passing. Much to my dismay, I see that I misspelled Borsari. Also, I meant to add in my comment that Graham Gauld had written a piece on Borsari that appeared in Prancing Horse Issue No. 153 (Fourth Quarter 2004) in Graham’s “Gauld Mine” series. Graham did his usual great job of story telling…