Quadrifoglio Verde (Four-Leaf Clover) — Origin
The Quadrifoglio Verde — Italian for “green four-leaf clover” — was first used as a personal good-luck charm by Ugo Sivocci at the 1923 Targa Florio, the fourteenth edition of the Sicilian mountain race. Sivocci had the reputation of “the eternal second” — a technically gifted driver cursed by persistent misfortune who had never won a major race. For the 1923 Targa Florio, Alfa Romeo and engineer Giuseppe Merosi prepared a special lightened and uprated racing version of the new RL model; the drivers selected were Antonio Ascari, Giuseppe Campari, Giulio Masetti, Enzo Ferrari, and Sivocci himself. Before the race, Sivocci painted a green four-leaf clover inside a white square on the nose of his car — a private superstition, a gesture against his own ill luck.
The superstition appeared to work. In the closing stages of the race, Sivocci led a trio that also included Antonio Ascari (whose car also bore a four-leaf clover, on a triangular background rather than a square), with Masetti fourth. Sivocci crossed the finish line first — Alfa Romeo’s first major international victory, and the first Targa Florio win for the Portello factory. It was, as it turned out, his only major win. Five months later, on 8 September 1923, Ugo Sivocci was killed at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza while testing Merosi’s new Alfa Romeo P1 in preparation for the Italian Grand Prix. The mechanics had not painted the quadrifoglio on that car — Sivocci ran out of time before the session, or regulations prevented it. His luck, the superstition held, ran out with the clover.
The response was immediate and permanent. Alfa Romeo withdrew from the 1923 Italian Grand Prix in mourning. From the 1924 season onward, the green four-leaf clover was painted on every Alfa Romeo racing car as standard practice — no longer a private talisman but a corporate emblem. In memory of Sivocci, the white square background was modified: one corner was opened, converting the square into a triangle, symbolising his absence. The open triangle has framed the clover on Alfa Romeo’s racing cars ever since, and the three remaining points are said to represent the three surviving drivers of that original 1923 quartet. The first Alfa Romeo road car to carry the quadrifoglio was the 1963 Alfa Romeo Giulia TI Super, which bore green four-leaf clovers on its front wings without the triangle. From the 1970s, “Quadrifoglio Verde” became the performance trim designation for Alfa Romeo’s most sporting road car variants; today it marks the flagship Giulia Quadrifoglio and Stelvio Quadrifoglio — a century-old emblem still in active use.
Connections
- Ugo Sivocci — originated_symbol at 1923 Targa Florio; died Monza September 8, 1923, source: wikipedia.org
- Alfa Romeo RL — first car to bear the symbol, 1923 Targa Florio, source: stellantis media
- Targa Florio — event of origin, 1923, source: wikipedia.org
- Alfa Romeo P1 — car Sivocci died in at Monza; did not carry the quadrifoglio, source: wikipedia.org
- Antonio Ascari — ran clover on triangular background at same race; finished second, source: stellantis media
- Alfa Romeo Giulia 2016 — modern flagship bearing the Quadrifoglio Verde on front wings, source: wikipedia.org