Ludovico Scarfiotti

Like his uncle Gianni Agnelli, Ludovico Scarfiotti was a suave, well-mannered gentleman who was no stranger to the privileges of wealth. He was, perhaps, no Grand Prix star—except on one gifted day in 1966—but he turned himself into an immensely capable hillclimber and sports car racer.

Born in Turin in October 1933, this handsome aristocrat with a Tony Curtis hairstyle was drawn to motor racing at the age of 23, when he competed in the last Mille Miglia in 1957. He drove one of the family’s products, a hot Fiat 1100, but did not even make it as far as the halfway point in Rome. He had caught the motor racing bug, though, and soon bought himself a string of OSCAs in which he put up some manly performances before having a go at hillclimbing, only to find he was really good at it. Today, mountain climbing is a mere shadow of what it was during the first half of the 20th century, but when Scarfiotti began to make his name in that branch of the sport it was considered highly prestigious. That is born out by the fact that Ferrari and Porsche regularly battled each other for the laurels at high altitudes on the Continent, where none other than Ludovico Scarfiotti won the European Mountain Championship in 1962 and 1965 driving a Ferrari Dino.