Nicola Materazzi


Nicola Materazzi is an Italian mechanical engineer who developed several sports and racing cars, including the Ferrari 288 GTO, Ferrari F40 and Bugatti EB110. He is best known for being Italy's turbo specialist from the mid 1970s as well as a respected sports car and motorcycle engineer.

Career

Along with Gordon Murray, Colin Chapman, Eric Broadley and Carroll Shelby Materazzi has been one of the most prolific engineering designers of the 70s, 80s and 90s, having worked on a total of 38 projects in motorsports, supercars and motorcycles during a career spanning 42 years. Coming from the region of Cilento where no automotive industry was present, his first career role started as Calculations Specialist in the Lancia Turin headquarters.
During his career in the Italian automobile industry he has worked with or been the successor to a number of notable engineers such as :it:Francesco De Virgilio|Francesco De Virgilio, Mario Mezzanotte, Franco Rocchi, Angelo Bellei, Antonio Tomaini, Massimo Tamburini, Paolo Stanzani, Marcello Gandini, Sergio Scaglietti, Leonardo Fioravanti.

List of projects & designs

Ferrari 412 GT engine - collaborated on the engine design
Born in a family of doctors, Nicola Materazzi showed an early interest in cars at the age of 4, asking his parents to read him pages of the press articles of the time.
During his adolescence he enrolled in the Liceo Classico school in the town where his father was a practicing doctor.
In 1961 he built his first go-kart at the age of 22 and he attended as a spectator his first Targa Florio race in 1966 where he was influenced by agile cars such as the Porsche 904 and Ferrari Dino. In 1970 while a spectator at Monza he witnessed the accident in practice where Jochen Rindt lost his life.

Lancia, Abarth, Osella (1968-1979)

After high school he spent the summers of 1964 and 1965 in internships at the Mobil Oil refinery near Naples where he learns about fuels and the important octane properties of different formulations of gasoline. After graduation in engineering at the University of Naples, he spent about a year working there as an assistant professor, leaving during the tense atmosphere created by the student protests of 1968.
Hired by the Lancia technical team in the early seventies, he moved to Turin where he worked as a calculations specialist on chassis, suspension and steering structures. One of his first important experiences was to participate in the development of the Lancia Stratos for rallying. Later as part of the design team responsible for modifying the engine and aerodynamics of the Group 5 turbocharged Stratos Silhouette, thus starting his long technical career, mostly dedicated to the design and testing of supercharged engines.
In 1978, following the merger of the Lancia and FIAT racing departments, he went to Abarth to design the car for the Formula FIAT Abarth, a racing series for developing young race drivers.
At the end of 1978, he worked at Osella where he was responsible for the design of a Formula 2 car and later of a Formula 1 car. However he did not follow the FA1's racing campaign because by January 1980 he was working at Ferrari.

Ferrari Formula 1 and performance road cars (1979-1988)

In 1979 he was hired by Ferrari's racing division as head of the design/engineering office due to his specialisation in forced induction, which would help the team from the 1980 season onwards. He was the main engineer responsible for the adoption of turbo engines at Ferrari.
Later he was also assigned several production car developments such as the engine for the 328 Turbo, Ferrari 288 GTO, 288 GTO Evoluzione, Testarossa, 412 GT, and was then directed by Enzo Ferrari, shortly before his death, to lead the development and creation of the F40 which is probably the project Materazzi is most associated to by Ferrari owners. He also designed various engines such as the type 268 used by the Lancia LC2 in endurance races.

Motorcycles & Bugatti (1989-1997)

After leaving Ferrari, he joined Cagiva as director of the racing department from 1990 to 1991. During this time he worked on engine and chassis technical developments for the GP500 Cagiva C589,C591 helping riders Eddie Lawson, Randy Mamola, Alex Barros & John Kocinski win more races than the previous seasons. Massimo Tamburini was responsible for the body and aerodynamics of the motorcycles.
At the end of 1991 he was contacted by Romano Artioli to take over the Bugatti EB110 project which was in serious difficulty after the departure of Paolo Stanzani. During this time he engineered the switch from the prototype aluminium honeycomb chassis to a carbon-fibre chassis, resolved issues with engine reliability and adapted the torque distribution to improve the vehicle handling. He also played a key role in the specification of the SS lightweight version. So good was the EB110 compared to its rivals during a group test by Michael Schumacher that he ordered one in yellow colour with blue comfort interior.
In 1994, Materazzi assumed the technical direction of Laverda to work on the new 750cc engine.

B Engineering Edonis (2000-2005)

The Edonis is the last swan song of the italian engineer. Development started in 2000 in order to present the car by 1 Jan 2001. he designed the Edonis supercar which was presented in Modena in 2001. In the summer of 2002 French magazine Sport-Auto organised a comparison amongst supercars at the Nardo' circuit in Puglia, southern Italy. The winner was the 715 horsepower Edonis, fitted with Michelin Pax System tyres, which clocked up a record speed for the circuit of 359.6 km/hr.

Personal Life

During his youth Materazzi was a keen motorcyclist and passionate about go-karts. After his studies in Naples he lived the majority of his life near Turin and Modena for work reasons. His hobby from an early age has been literature and over the years he built a very detailed library of technical and non-technical books.
As a knowledgeable expert in engines and engineering calculations, he has been interviewed by several book authors as the authority on the Ferrari turbocharged cars of the 1980s and has contributed to other worldwide articles about engine technology. He also periodically gives talks about cars and engineering. As a lover of the sea, after retirement from 2006 he returned to his native region of Cilento where his family roots are.