Automedont

Sergio Scaglietti, a sports car designer, whos name is associated with some of the most beautiful and famous Ferraris of the past 60 years, died Sunday at age 91 at his home in Modena.

Sergio Scaglietti was born Jan. 9, 1920, in Modena, Italy. He was forced to drop out of school at 13 after his father died. To support his family, he went to work in a local garage, where he learned to repair by hand the bent and dented bodies of cars banged up in accidents.

When Sergio was 17, his older brother and another employee formed their own coachbuilding company and took young Sergio with them. They set up shop in downtown Modena across the street from Enzo Ferrari’s Scuderia Ferrari, and in a short time they were repairing the Scuderia’s cars.

In the early 1950s, a gentleman racer from Bologna commissioned Sergio to rebody his damaged Touring Barchetta. “Enzo Ferrari saw this and said ‘That is not bad,’” Scaglietti remembered. “From this, he entrusted me with a new chassis.”

In 1954, Mr. Scaglietti was commissioned by Italian movie director Roberto Rossellini to design a custom Ferrari 375 MM for his then-wife, actress Ingrid Bergman.

In the mid 1950s, Scaglietti became the Carrozzeria of choice for Ferrari’s racing efforts. Many sports racing prototypes were designed and manufactured at their facility. All those exclusively designed by Scaglietti carried the Scaglietti & C. badge while cars built to outside designs didn’t. Several of Ferrari’s most coveted models such as the 250 California, 250 GTO and 250 Tour de France were built by Scaglietti to a Pinin Farina design.