Adolfo Orsi, the Machine Man

Grandson of the Modenese entrepreneur who owned Maserati from 1937 to 1968, Adolfo Orsi, born in 1951, is among the most respected automotive historians in the world. A judge at Concours d’Elegance events across the globe, an expert appraiser, and exhibition curator, he is also the publisher of the only yearbook that documents every classic car auction transaction worldwide.

Words by Marco Visani

Photography by Leonardo Perugini

Video by Andrea Ruggeri

Archive courtesy of the Adolfo Orsi Archive

It’s a small street overlooking Piazza Santo Stefano — Via de’ Pepoli. We’re in the heart of medieval Bologna. And it was in this narrow lane, barely two hundred metres long and just a few steps from the Seven Churches, that in 1914 Alfieri Maserati opened a workshop. Difficult to imagine, with modern eyes, a less “automotive” location. Yet that’s how it began: Maserati, contrary to what many believe, only became Modenese later on. By birth it was from Bologna — and even further back, Lombard, since the Maserati family hailed originally from Voghera.

Think of its emblem: the trident. It was Mario Maserati, the brother more sensitive to art than to engines, who suggested it. The design, chosen in 1926, deliberately took inspiration from the statue of Neptune that dominates Piazza Maggiore in Bologna — a symbol of strength and power. A fitting image, though in its original home it would not last very long.

Despite brilliant successes on the track, the Maserati brothers soon faced serious financial difficulties. Their true calling lay in designing cars, not managing a company that was beginning to grow and present all the complications that growth brings. Those were problems for a born entrepreneur — someone like Adolfo Orsi, a self-made Modenese industrialist born in 1888, who had built a small empire in the steel industry — and who loved cars. Proof of that passion came in 1935, when together with his brother Marcello he opened the Fiat dealership A.M. Orsi in Modena. Two years later he took over Maserati’s operations, signing a ten-year consultancy contract with Ernesto, Ettore and Bindo Maserati. Omer, Adolfo’s son, was appointed to run the company.

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In the winter of 1939–1940 the headquarters were moved to Modena, partly for practical proximity to the group’s other businesses. These were the years in which the new management began to dream of broadening the company’s focus beyond pure motorsport to include small-series grand-tourers — much as Alfa Romeo was already doing. The plans were there, but so was the war, forcing Maserati to fall back on less ambitious yet more profitable products: batteries, spark plugs, electric trucks and machine tools.

Only in 1947, with the launch of the A6 1500 (built in 61 examples up to 1950), did the road-going Maserati finally become reality, without ever abandoning the racing commitment. These were the years of Formula One (and not only that), with Juan Manuel Fangio as the leading driver.

A Family Heritage

That long preamble helps set the family scene into which, on 20 May 1951, Adolfo Orsi was born in Modena — Omer’s son. His name was an homage not to a single grandfather but to both: as fate would have it, his paternal grandfather was also called Adolfo.

Today, when people mention Adolfo Orsi, they almost certainly mean the grandson. Not only because of chronology — his grandfather passed away in October 1972, by which time Maserati had long since been acquired by Citroën — but because the younger Orsi has become one of those names that anyone interested in automotive history or car collecting will encounter sooner or later. For no one else, as far as we know, has managed to combine so many of the trades linked to the four-wheeled world: entrepreneur, racing driver, auction organiser, concours judge, appraiser, publisher. Sometimes he alternated between these roles, other times he accumulated them — with an appetite that, as anyone who spends half an hour in conversation with him quickly realises, is driven by a visceral passion — one that seeks knowledge and breeds expertise.

It is a wonderful way of honouring his family’s legacy — and by no means a foregone conclusion, given how often dynasties falter by the second generation, let alone the third.

A Childhood Among Engines

As a child, he often cycled to the factory, eager to see the new cars coming off the production line. He soon became the “co-driver” of test driver Guerrino Bertocchi and learned to recognise suspicious noises and vibrations during road tests.

As a teenager, he accompanied his father to the Turin Motor Show at Torino Esposizioni, or to visit the coachbuilders around the city. In his early twenties he spent a couple of months working for Bob Grossman, Maserati’s importer on the American East Coast. Grossman raced in the Trans-Am series, and at weekends they went to the circuits; when Bob wasn’t competing, young Adolfo joined another Bob — Bob Dini, the workshop manager — who raced on dirt tracks.

He was allowed to take any car from the showroom to reach the motel or, at weekends, to make a dash to New York. He drove everything: Lincoln Continentals, Ferraris, Corvettes, Cobras — and with petrol at just fifty cents a gallon: a dream come true.

Back in Europe, he cut his teeth as a rally driver, behind the wheel of a Fiat 125 Special Group 2 and an Alpine A110 Group 3. In his twenties, he even took part in the Monte Carlo Rally. Yet it was only a brief episode: he had too much respect for the cars entrusted to him, and with the brutal roads of that era he couldn’t bear to see them damaged. When that youthful illusion faded, it was time to buckle down and get to work.

A Calling Becomes a Career

At first, his professional life seemed to take a very different path: a solid education — including a grounding in languages such as Latin and German, insisted upon by his father — and a degree in Law, led him to a senior position in one of the family businesses.

The world of transport was not unfamiliar, but not in the way Adolfo had imagined it. Accessauto, the company he worked for, distributed spare parts for Fiat cars and trucks across Emilia-Romagna and the Marche region.

But Orsi junior was not the kind to settle. “As long as one is restless,” wrote Julien Green, “one can be at peace.” And in the still-young Adolfo that restlessness was a defining trait — it had many faces but invariably smelled of mineral oil.

While still at university, between exams, he had begun restoring Maseratis for collectors — among them a 4CM and an A6GCS — coordinating craftsmen who had originally built those cars almost half a century earlier, such as the Bertocchis or Medardo Fantuzzi. Why not, he thought, turn this passion into a profession?

In 1987, at the age of thirty-six, came the turning point: he left everything else behind to devote himself fully to what truly fascinated him — the history of the automobile in all its forms, with a special focus on what had happened within the Motor Valley.

That inevitably meant knowing racing as well as production, drivers as well as engineers, in an intricate weave where men and machines, thought and piston, became an irresistible, inseparable blend.

The Historian’s Instinct

In fact, his historical curiosity linked to mechanics had surfaced as early as secondary school. At the 1969 Geneva Motor Show, Maserati — by then under Citroën control but still partly owned by the Orsi family — was to unveil a new grand tourer designed by Carrozzeria Vignale. A name had yet to be chosen. Adolfo reminded his father that it was exactly thirty years since Maserati’s first of two consecutive victories at Indianapolis (the marque had won in 1939 and 1940). “Why not call it Indy?” he suggested. Said and done.

That wasn’t his only direct contribution to the marque that once belonged to his family. A second would come much later, in 1994. By then Maserati had passed from French to Italian hands — from Citroën to Alejandro De Tomaso in 1976, and to Fiat in 1993. The newly appointed CEO, engineer Eugenio Alzati, was preparing to celebrate the brand’s 80th anniversary with a retrospective at the Bologna Motor Show. Orsi met Alzati at the exhibition and proposed creating a single-make racing series for the Ghibli, the latest offshoot of the prolific Biturbo lineage, and offered to organise it himself. The result was twofold: a special road-going version, the Ghibli Cup, which breathed new life into a structurally dated model, and a promotional championship that was both highly engaging and genuinely competitive. Legends of motorsport such as Luyendyk, Tambay, Alén, Nanni Galli and Nesti took part as guest drivers, at the wheel of Ghibli Open Cup racers provided by the organisers.

Collector, Restorer, Enthusiast

Not merely a theorist but a practitioner of automotive passion, Orsi keeps in his garage several Maseratis from his family’s era, all acquired long after their direct involvement ended: the 1959 3500 GT Vignale Spider prototype (the very car shown at the Turin Motor Show), a 1965 Quattroporte once owned by Marcello Mastroianni, a 1967 Mistral, and two ongoing restoration projects — Il Muletto, a small truck powered by a two-stroke twin-cylinder Maserati engine from 1950–51, and the prototype 3500 GT Touring known as the “Dama Bianca”. And then there are a couple of toy pedal cars — reminders that life is lighter and lovelier when treated as a continuous game.

The World of Auctions

But man does not live by Maserati alone. The first chapter of Orsi’s new life began with the auction world — then an emerging but little-known sector in Italy.

Through an association with Finarte he organised several auctions in Modena between 1988 and 1991. In 1992, when the Italian government introduced an additional tax on auctioned vehicles, he decided to withdraw. Not, however, before having sparked genuine public interest — for the first time in Italy — in the field of automobilia. The experience proved formative for the many chapters of his later life in the labyrinths of car collecting.

Working inside the auction system lit a new idea. Why, he wondered, was it so difficult to trace transaction values? The answer was simple: there was no comprehensive record — no Annales to catalogue them. He began to organise scattered data for his own use. Then, in 1993, he was contacted by the late Alberto Bolaffi, the publisher whose name is synonymous with Italian collecting culture. Bolaffi asked Orsi to help improve an existing tool, the Bolaffi Catalogue of Collectable Cars, first issued a couple of years earlier. Orsi explained that the commercial value of any car varies dramatically depending on its history — and the first strand of its DNA is the chassis number. Moreover, to have international relevance, prices should be expressed not only in lire but also in pounds and dollars.

With Raffaele Gazzi’s collaboration, the New Bolaffi Catalogue appeared in 1995 and continued until 2006. When Bolaffi chose to discontinue publication, Orsi set out to continue independently as publisher under the Historica Selecta imprint — for many years still with Gazzi’s support.

The successor became the Classic Car Auction Yearbook, published exclusively in English. The 2024/25 edition, to be unveiled this October, marks the thirtieth instalment — an over-400-page volume known in Britain simply as “The Bible.” And if the British call it that, they know what they’re talking about.

Expert Witness and Curator

Alongside his auction work and publications, Orsi also served for many years as a court-appointed expert. Whenever a questionable car was seized, courts across Italy called on him to determine whether it was genuine or a fake. A classic example — though far from unique — was the appearance of two cars bearing the same chassis number: inevitably one of them was “invented”, however skilfully.

Behind such high-profile judicial investigations there was often the painstaking work of Adolfo Orsi — time-consuming but vital.

Then there were the exhibitions. One of the most famous was Mitomacchina, staged between 2006 and 2007 at the MART museum in Rovereto. The museum had enlisted illustrious names — Giorgetto Giugiaro, Sergio Pininfarina and others — but they lacked the time to engage fully. When director Gabriella Belli called him in, Orsi overturned the table: he replaced half the cars already selected and imposed a rigorous curatorial logic on the show. With 130,000 visitors, Mitomacchina became one of Europe’s most successful automotive exhibitions. The British magazine Thoroughbred & Classic Cars described it as “the most brain-tingling exhibition of cars ever assembled in the name of art.”

Over the years he also curated shows on Bugatti (with American historian Griff Borgeson, whom he calls his spiritual father), on great drivers such as Fangio in Modena and Nuvolari at Palazzo Te in Mantua, and naturally on Maserati itself — notably the marque’s centenary exhibition in 2014.

The Judge

By the time all these ventures were in full swing, another role had emerged: Adolfo Orsi the concours judge. He has been walking that particular lawn for more than twenty-five years, with ever-greater responsibility. He is a founding member of the International Chief Judge Advisory Group — which unites the world’s leading head judges — and has served as Chief Judge for the FIVA Trophy class at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance since its inception in 1999. He has attended twenty-seven consecutive editions of Pebble Beach, and around 150 concours worldwide — from Russia to China, Australia to Japan, the US to India, Morocco to Romania. He clearly enjoys bringing his decades of experience to emerging markets in the field.

What makes his contribution particularly significant is his long-standing campaign against so-called over-restoration — that excess of zeal which once led owners and their technicians to make cars too perfect. Today it is widely accepted that a car’s value increases with its originality, and that presenting a vehicle as though it had just left the showroom is historically misleading. Much of that shift in mindset is due to Adolfo Orsi, who in the late 1990s championed the FIVA Award for best-preserved car at concours events.

At the time, the idea seemed eccentric; today it’s mainstream. In 2024 both Pebble Beach and Villa d’Este awarded their top prizes to preserved, unrestored cars. The numbers speak for themselves: in 1999 there were only five cars dans leur jus at Pebble Beach — to borrow the French expression. Today, that category — not an official class, but a cross-section of the field — typically numbers at least five times as many.

A Philosophy of Value

Up to this point, we have spoken of the automobile in its historical, documentary and cultural dimensions. But of course, every car also carries economic weight — sometimes enormous, especially when prestigious marques are involved. When collecting becomes investment, the market is subject to the same fluctuations as any share certificate. Asked what advice he would offer to prospective buyers, Orsi gives an answer that may disappoint anyone already fingering their mental abacus in anticipation of profit — yet one that will delight those who see cars as expressions of passion:

“The car you love gives you a steady return — the pleasure of admiring it or driving it. That’s the only guaranteed yield. I can’t tell you whether the car you’re about to buy will gain value in ten years. It may rise a lot, or only a little, or not at all. But if you love that car, you will have enjoyed it. And if it has given you the joy of owning it — that, in the end, will be the true value of your purchase.”

About the author, Marco Visani. Born in Imola in 1967, he has been a journalist since 1986. After beginning his career as a reporter for Il Resto del Carlino and other local newspapers, he has been writing about automobiles since 1992.

He has worked with magazines such as Quattroruote, Ruoteclassiche, TopGear, Youngtimer, Auto Italiana, Auto, AM, Sprint, InterAutoNews, and EpocAuto; with TG2 television; the portal Veloce.it; and with the English publisher Redwood Publishing, active in the field of customer magazines. He is currently the Italian correspondent for the French classic-car magazine Gazoline, editor-in-chief of the bimonthly ZeroA, and contributor to L’automobileclassica, Youngclassic, Quadrifoglio, and Tutto Porsche. He also manages heritage communication for Volvo Car Italia. His writings have appeared in Corriere dello Sport-Stadio, Avvenire, Tecnologie Meccaniche, Rétroviseur (France), and Top Auto (Spain). He has published and co-authored several books for Giorgio Nada Editore other publishers from 2016 to 2021.