The ever shy and brilliant manufacturer Giuliano Michelotto, the engineer from Padua who boasts a very long series of victories thanks to his preparation of the Prancing Horse cars, was able to win the class at Le Mans three times with the Ferrari 365 Daytona in the Seventies.
Giuliano Michelotto.
Not to mention the successes achieved with the Ferrari 333SP, winner three times at Sebring, twice at Watkins Glen, once at Daytona and Monza as well as the class victory at Le Mans in 1998.
Michelotto Engineering workshops.
The engine department of Michelotto Engineering workshops.
«We continue to collaborate with Ferrari, but we have reached a size that forces us to collaborate with multiple manufacturers and no longer with just one. We employ 100 workers and another 200 indirect workers, to whom we must guarantee work. We have to build a streamlined project: we will be a real commando", Michelotto says with a smile. This is how, after decades of collaborations and successes, the Cavallino and Michelotto will find themselves on the same grid but in different garages.
Davide Cironi with Giuliano Michelotto. Photo by Drive Experience.
As Davide Cironi reports in his interview with Giuliano Michelotto in 2024, the engineer spent "50 years alongside Ferrari for the creation of some of the most beloved cars in history, such as the Ferraris 308 Group 4, 288 GTO, GTO Evoluzione, F40 and all the most successful GTs from the 360 to the 488, passing through the legendary 333SP Barchetta. Michelotto is an engineering team that seems to be able to do anything, including bringing the Isotta Fraschini brand back to racing and to the production of road hypercars.”
Giuliano Michelotto’s first workshop in a garage in central Padua.
The story of Giuliano Michelotto begins in Padua in 1969 in a workshop that, in 1973, became a Ferrari Service.
Today Michelotto Engineering deals with racing cars, prototypes of production cars and tuning of road cars.
A young Giuliano Michelotto with one of his closest collaborators, Franco Traverso, in 1976.
1978, beginning of the year... First tests of the Ferrari 308 in the Treviso area. From left Giuliano Michelotto, Fabrizio De Checchi, Roberto Liviero and Fabio Penariol. Photo by Antonio Biasioli.
Since his origins Michelotto has dedicated himself to the preparation of racing cars, immediately achieving rapid success.
A young Giuliano Michelotto with a Lancia Stratos Group 4.
Among the results of the first thirty years of activity are the conquest of the Italian Touring Car Championship Group 1 Class 850 in 1971, five Italian Rally Championships and over thirty overall victories obtained with the Lancia Stratos in the seventies, also two Targa Florios, two Tours de France, an Italian Rally Championship and a Spanish Rally Championship with the Ferrari 308 Group 4 in the early eighties.
The first of the series of Ferraris prepared by Michelotto was the Group 4 rally version of the 308 GTB.
Ferrari 308 GTB Michelotto Group 4 rally.
Ferrari 308 Group 4 Michelotto FIA HTP - Simon Furlonger.
Ferrari 308 GRB Michelotto.
On the basis of the experiences thus acquired, the Paduan company was involved by Ferrari in the creation of the 308 GT/M of 1983 - destined to replace the 308 Group 4 and 308 Group B - and then of the subsequent Ferrari GTO Evoluzione of 1985 which, due of the changed sporting regulations, became the laboratory car for the development of the Ferrari F40.
Michelotto was subsequently commissioned by Ferrari to create the racing versions of the F40: 19 examples of the F40 Le Mans (1989) were built for the US IMSA championship, seven Ferrari F40 GTs (1993) for the Italian Granturismo Championship and seven Ferrari F40 GTEs (1994) for the BPR Global GT Series.
Some examples of the various versions were also entered in the 24 Hours of Le Mans by various teams during the nineties but, being designed for sprint races, they did not obtain significant results in the classic French marathon. The best result was in fact 12th place, 28 laps behind the winner, obtained in 1995 after setting the 5th overall time and the pole position among the GTs in qualifying. Among the many feats should be noted the successes with the Ferrari 337SP, which collected 69 pole positions and 56 overall victories, including three 12 Hours of Sebring and one 24 Hours of Daytona.
However, the boom in success came in the last twenty years, when the cars leaving the Padua headquarters achieved this incredible series of results:
34 Manufacturer titles
120 Team titles
183 Drivers' titles
178 FIA Constructors' World Championships
28 FIA Team World Championships
30 FIA Drivers' World Championships
11 victories 24H Le Mans
18 victories 24H Spa
2 victories 24h Daytona
9 wins 12H Sebring
10 victories 10H Petit Le Mans
Over 1300 single victories
Photo by Tiziano Biasioli.
Excerpt and photographs taken from 'A rally evening at Ceo Filippi, filmed by Tiziano Biasioli of Belle Epoque Film'.
We immortalized an evening with the champions of the golden years of rallying in the warm atmosphere of the mansion of Ceo Filippi, rally driver and organizer of the legendary Campagnolo Rally which was run on the winding roads of the Vicenza mountains until 1977.
In addition to the faces known in meetings of this kind, such as Cavallari, Lucky, Munari, Tognana, Svizzero, Rudy, Casarotto, etc., there were present people of the caliber of the 1964 World Champion with Ferrari Nino Vaccarella, the artist of the running shoe Ciccio, Amilcare Ballestrieri, the Sports Director of the Jolly Club Claudio Bortoletto, the pilot journalist Leo Pittoni, the king of dried fruit Noberasco, Roberto Liviero and, incredibly, Giuliano Michelotto, accompanied by his son Cristiano, in one of his very rare exits from his Ferrari workshop in Padua.
Photo by Tiziano Biasioli.
Photo by Tiziano Biasioli.
We were sitting at the table with him and witnessed a true 'pilgrimage' of drivers and enthusiasts who came to pay homage to the legendary preparer of the Lancia Stratos and, subsequently, of the 'gamble' in the Rally version of the Ferrari 308 GTB.
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