Ferrari engineering legend Mauro Forghieri has passed away at the age of 87.
Forghieri is best known as the guiding engineering and design influence for a long series of Ferrari Formula One cars but his influence extended deeply too into a whole series of truly iconic sportscars too.
That included an early involvement with the Ferrari 250 GTO, picking up the baton after several senior engineers and designers left Ferrari in 1961.
That saw Forghieri’s role expanding rapidly through a period where Ferrari were operating at a world class competitive level in both single seaters and sportscars.
The 275 GTB and the 330 LMB racers were also designed, developed and racing on Forghieri’s watch, as too were the P series and many of the Dino Series racers too.
Perhaps fittingly in the week that saw the public unveiling of the new 499P Hypercar, Forghieri’s last major sports racer was the 312P and 312PB, the last top class prototypes to be operated by the Ferrari factory team.
In all his 22 year spell with Ferrari yielded 5 world sportscar titles in addition to 11 Formula 1 World titles.
After leaving Ferrari Forghieri was still active in racing into the mid 1990s including a period assisting the development of the short-lived Bugatti EB 110S racer of 1994.
Pic top copyright and courtesy ACO – Other pics courtesy racingsportscar.com
