Alfieri Maserati (23 September 1887 – 3 March 1932) was an Italian automotive engineer, known for establishing and leading the

Maserati Maserati S.p.A. () is an Italian luxury vehicle manufacturer. Established on 1 December 1914, in Bologna, Italy, the company's headquarters are now in Modena, and its emblem is a trident. The company has been owned by Stellantis since 2021. Ma ...

racing car manufacturer with the other Maserati Brothers. Maserati was born in

Voghera The Castle of Voghera in a 19th-century etching. Voghera ( Vogherese dialect of Emilian: ''Vughera''; Latin: ''Forum Iulii Iriensium'') is a town and ''comune'' in the Province of Pavia in the Italian region Lombardy. The population was 39,374 ...

. In 1903 he and his brother

Bindo Maserati Bindo Maserati (1883 - September 1980) was an Italian automotive engineer and businessman, known as the manager of Maserati and one of the Maserati Brothers. Born in Voghera, he was a mechanic at Isotta Fraschini (1910–32) where he joined his ...

started working for

Isotta Fraschini Isotta Fraschini () was an Italian luxury car manufacturer, also producing trucks, as well as engines for marine and aviation use. Founded in Milan, Italy, in 1900 by Cesare Isotta and the brothers Vincenzo, Antonio, and Oreste Fraschini, in 19 ...

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

, on their older brother

Carlo Maserati Carlo Maserati (1881 in Voghera – 1910) was an Italian bicycle and automotive engineer, and the eldest of the Maserati Brothers. His engineering career started in a bicycle factory in Affori, near Milan, where he developed a one-cylinder ...

's recommendation. He followed Carlo to

Bianchi Bianchi may refer to: Places *Bianchi, Calabria, a ''comune'' in the Province of Cosenza, Italy Manufacturing *Bianchi Bicycles (F.I.V. Edoardo Bianchi S.p.A.), an Italian manufacturer of bicycles, and former manufacturer of motorcycles and a ...

in 1905, with whom he also raced and won in 1909. On Bindo's recommendation, Alfieri and

Ettore Maserati Ettore Maserati (1894 – 4 August 1990) was an Italian automotive engineer, one of five brothers who founded the Maserati firm in Bologna 1914. He was born in Voghera. His oldest brother Carlo Maserati brought him to the Junior car manufacturer ...

went back to

on a mission to

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

in 1912, returning to Italy to found the new

-based workshop ''Societa Anonima Officine Alfieri

'' in 1914. Both served in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

and the workshop was run by his brother

Ernesto Maserati Ernesto Maserati (4 August 1898 – 1 December 1975) was an Italian automotive engineer and racer, with Maserati of Modena since its inception in Bologna on 14 December 1914, together with his brothers Alfieri Maserati (leader), Ettore Maserati ...

, who led a large production of

spark plugs A spark plug (sometimes, in British English, a sparking plug, and, colloquially, a plug) is a device for delivering electric current from an ignition system to the combustion chamber of a spark-ignition engine to ignite the compressed fuel/air ...

to the war effort. After the war a larger production plant was set up in

Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nat ...

. Alfieri won a number of races in the 1920s and he was head mechanic for

Diatto Diatto was an Italian manufacturing company founded in 1835 in Turin by Guglielmo Diatto (1804–1864) to make 'carriages for wealthy customers'. In 1874 Guglielmo’s sons, Giovanni and Battista Diatto, began building railway carriages for Comp ...

from 1922 until 1926, when he joined his brothers and they created the

Maserati Tipo 26 The Maserati Tipo 26 was a model of Grand Prix motor racing, Grand Prix racing car and was the first car built by Italian manufacturer Maserati, for a total of 11 examples, between 1926 and 1932. The Tipo 26 originated from a Grand Prix car that ...

based on Diatto chassis he had brought. In 1927 while racing his Type 26 at the 312 km 1st Coppa Messina on the Circuit of Monti Peloritani, Alfieri lost control in the first lap and the car overturned after hitting a ditch. Alfieri was gravely injured. He had emergency surgery, one of his kidneys being irreparably damaged. In 1932, during a poorly executed surgery on the remaining kidney, Alfieri died unexpectedly from complications while in the recovery room on the third of March, in Ospedale Maggiore in Bologna. He was commemorated in the "

Maserati Alfieri The Maserati Alfieri is a grand tourer from the Italian car manufacturer Maserati. It was shown as a concept car at the 2014 Geneva Motor Show. Concept __NOTOC__ The car is named after Alfieri Maserati (1887–1932), one of the five Maserati ...

" concept car, presented in 2014 for the 100-year anniversary of Maserati.

See also

References

Further reading