Wilfredo Ricart
Wifredo Pelayo Ricart Medina (15 May 1897 – 19 August 1974) was a Spanish engineer whose appointment at Alfa Romeo in 1936 set in motion the chain of events that ended Enzo Ferrari’s twelve-year association with Alfa — and, indirectly, created Ferrari S.p.A. Born in Barcelona, Ricart graduated as an industrial engineer in 1918, initially worked at a Hispano-Suiza dealership, and then founded Motores Ricart-Pérez producing industrial stationary engines. By 1922 he had designed his first automobile (a 4-cylinder, 16-valve, 1.5-litre racing car), and in 1926 he established Motores y Automóviles Ricart — presenting prototypes at the Paris Motor Show — before the Depression killed the venture. He arrived at Alfa Romeo in 1936 fleeing the Spanish Civil War, already a respected engineer and member of the Society of Automotive Engineers.
Ugo Gobbato hired Ricart as Chief Engineer for Special Projects — responsible for all car, truck, aviation engine, and racing car design — in a position that structurally elevated him above Enzo Ferrari’s role as Sporting Director of Alfa Corse. Ferrari found this intolerable. In his memoir My Terrible Joys, Ferrari described Ricart in vivid, unflattering terms: the famous anecdote about thick-soled shoes (which Ricart explained protected “a great engineer’s brain” from the jolts of uneven ground); Ferrari’s contempt for a crankshaft that “revolved like a skipping rope”; and dismissal of Ricart’s racing car as “outdated, good only for scrap or a museum.” The working arrangement collapsed; Ferrari departed Alfa in September 1939. Ricart remained at Portello until approximately March 1945. His technical programme was ambitious: the Alfa Romeo Tipo 162 (3-litre, 16-cylinder supercharged, intended for the planned GP formula) and the Alfa Romeo 512 (flat-12, rear-engined) were advanced concepts, but neither raced competitively before WWII ended European motorsport. He also designed Project Gazzella — a six-seat, front-wheel-drive aerodynamic saloon with hydraulic gearchange that was decades ahead of its time.
Returning to devastated Barcelona in 1945, Ricart negotiated with the Spanish government to create Enasa — Empresa Nacional de Autocamiones — built from the remnants of Hispano-Suiza’s Barcelona facilities, recruiting 24 former Alfa Romeo colleagues. His masterwork was the Pegaso Z-102, a supercharged V8 supercar of extraordinary sophistication, which debuted at the Paris Motor Show in October 1951. On 25 September 1953 at Jabbeke, Belgium, a Pegaso Z-102 set a world speed record — briefly the fastest production car in the world. Ricart also oversaw Enasa’s industrial vehicle output, building Pegaso diesel trucks into the backbone of Spanish road transport. He served as FISITA President 1957–1959, resigned as Enasa CEO in 1959 having been criticised for prioritising technical excellence over commercial pragmatism, and lived in Barcelona until his death on 19 August 1974. Despite his bitter rivalry with Ferrari, Ferrari later acknowledged that Ricart’s GP car concepts had influenced his own Formula One designs.
Connections
- Alfa Romeo — Chief Engineer for Special Projects, 1936–1945, source: wikipedia.org
- Ugo Gobbato — appointed_by, 1936, source: wikipedia.org
- Enzo Ferrari — antagonist; Ferrari’s departure from Alfa (September 1939) directly caused by Ricart’s elevation, source: wikipedia.org
- Alfa Corse — engineering authority within Alfa Corse structure, 1938–1945, source: wikipedia.org