Sergio Scaglietti (l) is seen here with Piero Ferrari. Piero issued the following statement; 'He was one of my father’s best friends. He was next to me with Marco Piccinini also the day my father died and stayed with me the whole night until the funeral. I loved him and he was a very important part of my life. The world is emptier without Sergio.'
By Michael T. Lynch
The world has lost one of the great artisans of immediate post-World War II coachbuilding. Sergio Scaglietti died last Saturday night at his home. A son of Modena born in 1920, he joined his brother at Carrozzeria Emiliana when he was just 13, a year short of what Italian labor laws of the time allowed. This was due to the death of his father and the need for family income.
It is hard to describe the impact of Scaglietti’s designs, which included styling cues like the headrests on the racing cars. Some of his designs are among the most coveted of all Ferraris among collectors. The pontoon-fender 250 Testa Rossa is certainly one of the most striking. Scaglietti said, “It was beautiful, as I would see different characteristics when I looked at it. In many ways, it was a Formula One car with fenders.” When my gang first saw one at Sebring in 1958, Ray Riepen, one of our fellow travelers, stated it best, “Man, that’s guts football.” The car’s stance was so aggressive with its combination of curves and open space in the bodywork that we knew exactly what he meant. The 250 TR looked like a player who ran over the opposition, rather than around it.
But Scaglietti’s talent extended to more sublime creations like the 375 MM coupe (0402 MM) done for Italian film director Roberto Rossellini. The car began life as a competition roadster, but after Rossellini ran it into a tree, he paid Scaglietti to body it as a coupe for a fee of 200,000 lira. Now owned by collector John Shirley, the car has come as close as any post-war car in decades to winning the Pebble Beach Concours.
Marshall Buck's model of the Rossellini 375MM clearly shows Scaglietti's artistry. Photo courtesy Marshall Buck.
Scaglietti once related how when he delivered the car at Rossellini’s hotel, the great man came to the door naked and there was a woman in the room who wasn’t Rossellini’s wife, Ingrid Bergman.
When Ferrari began series production in the late 1950s, Scaglietti began building bodies for cars like the 250 Pinin Farina coupe. This created the unusual situation of cars with different coachbuilder badges coming out of Scaglietti’s atelier. The volume led to a new factory in Modena at Via Emilia Est 1163 which remains today, now part of Ferrari itself. The factory’s origins were due to a bank loan that Enzo Ferrari cosigned. Although much of his work from that point involved manufacture rather than design, Scaglietti worked closely with the Pinin Farina staff, resulting in such milestones as the 250 GT California Spyder. Scaglietti’s last great design was the Ferrari Series 1 GTO, the most valuable of all Ferraris, although he felt he was too rushed at the time to do his finest work.
Modena suffered a great deal of labor unrest as the sixties wore on, and Scaglietti was happy to sell out to Fiat at the same time Ferrari did. He then stayed on for 15 years as the manager of a company he no longer owned. By the mid-1980s he was retired and spent a quiet life on a farm outside Modena. He was often a guest at the great automotive events of the world, and his reputation only continued to grow through the years.
One of my favorite memories of him dates back to the first Pebble Beach Tour d’Elegance in 1998. The Pebble Beach Concours was honoring Scaglietti that year with a class of cars he had either designed or manufactured. Scaglietti was a small man, possessed of great magnetism. He and son Stefano were offered a ride on the Tour by long-time Pebble Beach Concours entrant, Stephen Brauer. The car was a huge (154” wheelebase) 1937 Cadillac Series 90 V-16 Fleetwood Convertible Sedan with a spacious back seat. I remember standing on Ocean Avenue in Carmel when the Tour cars arrived for their lunch stop. As the Cadillac came into view, Scaglietti looked like a pea in a shipping container, he seemed so small in the car. Then, a few cognoscenti in the crowd recognized him and began calling his name. He began smiling and waving like an astronaut in a Fifth Avenue parade. He later told me it was one of the great experiences of his life, to have come to a small village half a world away and be recognized as if he were in his home town.
Sergio Scaglietti enjoys the symbolic labors of another metalsmith.
Sergio Scaglietti’s name was inextricably linked to that of Ferrari, and he was one of his few close friends. However, he was in his own right, one of the great pioneers of the effervescent designs that emerged from tough times in postwar Italy and inspired what was then called the country’s postwar Economic Miracle. His work is part of a body that continues to inspire designers today. VeloceToday extends its condolences to his wife Loredana, son Stefano and family.
Alas, I couldn’t speak Italian,when I saw him (and still can’t) but I am curious about his use of his own coachbuilder’s badge. Did he post it on very few cars?
After he went “in house” at Ferrari, dare he still use it? (Didn’t Greg Garrison have a 400 convertible bodied by him wearing that badge?). Also I wonder if Mr. Lynch ever heard anything about Enzo Ferrari’s attitude toward the three Corvettes bodied for Carroll Shelby & partners by Scaglietti–whether it’s true Enzo said to Scaglietti he didn’t want to see any more of those around or if it’s more a case (as has most often been reported ) of Chevrolet cutting Shelby off from more chassis and that led to the end of the project? I think it was commendable of Concorso Italiano to have honored him, it’s so rare than someone from Italy gets honored here when all their work was done over there in relative obscurity (except of course for the cognoscenti).
I was fortunate to meet Mr. Scaglietti in the Fall of 1967 when I went to Modena to watch my 275/GTB.4 (s/n 10525) being built. In the morning, Renato Mazzola, the PR fellow assigned to me by Ferrari, took me to Scaglietti’s and showed me my already assembled and painted body & frame sitting on a dolly waiting to go to Maranello for final assembly of powertrain and suspension, etc. Although I was introduced (as much as one can be when I spoke no Italian and Mr. Scaglietti, little English) to Mr. Scaglietti, Renato took me on “the tour”. That I afternoon, I returned with my movie camera and started filming, only to realize that my car was no longer sitting where it had been and a young woman was bearing down on me with an ominous scowl on her face. It was obvious from her rapid fire Italian that the movie camera was NOT welcome. When I tried to explain, she said, “If you will speak very slowly, I will try to help you”. With this (I learned her name, Franca Sitta), she re-introduced me to Mr. Scaglietti who (at least this is my take on things) realized how much I admired his work and took me on yet ANOTHER “tour”. While this was going on, a worker emerged from the paint booth carrying a P-4 hood. Mr. Scaglietti turned and said, “Same color, your car!” Guess what, my movie camera was now welcome, as was my Instamatic Kodak, and the “welcome mat” was always out, leaving me with some remarkable memories!
Dear Pete,
only thing I would like to add,there is a wonderful (regrettably privately published) book by Franco Gozzi on his friend:
L’E ANDEDA ACSE
SERGIO SCAGLIETTI UNA LEGGENDA MODENESE .
It’s bilingual Italian/English..
Very best regards Michael
Another star gone from the automotive firmament. In the smaller scheme of things, I continue to feel sorrow for the car/racing nuts of today whose focus is on computer analysis and street cars that can’t be driven anywhere near their limits for fun anywhere but on the track, and who know little or nothing of people like Scaglietti or the Zagato family. This incredible performance of cars you can get from your local dealer is a good thing, of course; but there’s been a great great loss of artistry and the esthetics of sports car design. And this loss is unrecognized by the young enthusiast of today because he’s too young to be able to remember it. Do you suppose anyone might build a racing simulator whose vehicles included MGTCs and HRGs and Triumphs? This old coot thinks that would be fun!
A great article for a great man! Thank you.
Michael Catsch: I agree, a really well rounded biography going way beyond the cars and business. Scaglietti comes across as a clever but genuine and humble guy who worked very hard. The incredible parade of cars and “stars” who passed through that shop makes for great reading. My favorite “deadline” story: Enzo Ferrari presses even harder that usual to get 750 Monza #0520M’s body done for Rosier to make the cutoff for the ’55 Dakar Grand Prix. A job that normally would take a week was done in 40 hours straight with “everyone who could fit around the chassis on the job. What a Herculean effort!”
I think the rock star fame later in life may have left him a little bemused (in his mind he was still the guy who ran a little body shop in a small town), but satisfied and grateful for the appreciation that finally came. “L’e andeda acse” indeed (“that’s just how it turned out”).
We have lost a great artist and craftsman.
any artist,be it plastic,fine art,or industrial will be very much out of touch with the culture if he ignores or has no taste for the giants of italian automobile design.the names sergio scaglietti,zagato,farina,bertone,ect.each bring to mind a definite emotion no less the van gogh,rembrandt,kokoschka,ect. will we ever see the likes of such giants again? i think not.
Toly: I am 25, and wasn’t even alive when many of these great bodies were being produced. I find them much more fascinating than anything currently produced, and spend more time learning about various etceterini than anything coming out of today’s manufacturers.
Oh hise masterpieces! As a car crazy kid I fell in love the pontoonfendered Testa Rossa. It remains to me the most beautiful car ever built.
Michael T. Lynch is wrong. Scaglietti did not design the 250 GTO; he fabricated it to an existing design.
I have also had to correct Octane magazine and Wikipedia regarding the exact same error.
I assume Mr. Owen is attributing the design of the GTO body to Giotto Bizzarrini. Bizzarrini did work at Ferrari with an in house body man to create the beginnings of the GTO body on SWB chassis 2053. This car, as tested by Moss in September, 1961, had a front resembling the nose of the final design in that it had the ovid grill and the three vents. However, the rear looked like a SWB with a lot of lumpy temporary grafts to make it wider. The car was referred to as the Mostro in the shop and the Anteater by the press. Shortly thereafter, Bizzarrini left Ferrari as part of what is now known as The Great Walkout, along with Chiti, Tavoni, Gardini and others. At that point, Scaglietti took over and created the shape for the first GTO chassis as well as all subsequent ongoing detail changes. The GTOs we see today were all built with Scaglietti’s significant refinements, which created a much different look than the prototype. That leads me to credit him with the design.