Giovanni Volpi

{{Short description|Italian-Algerian nobleman and former automobile racing manager}}

Image:1961 Ferrari 250 TR 61 Spyder Fantuzzi 34 left 2.jpg modified by Giotto Bizzarrini for Volpi's Scuderia Serenissima]]

Count Giovanni Volpi di Misurata (born 1938 in Venice, Kingdom of Italy) is an Italian-Algerian nobleman and a former automobile racing manager and Formula One team owner. He inherited a fortune, at the age of 24, from his father, Count Giuseppe Volpi di Misurata, a politician, financier and founder of the renowned Venice Film Festival. During World War II, Giovanni Volpi's father served in Benito Mussolini's cabinet as the minister of Finance and one of his chief advisors. He designed several of Mussolini's austerity measures and escaped prosecution after the war. His father also acquired and restored Villa Barbaro at Maser, Italy, built originally for the Barbaro family. Giovanni Volpi is the son of Giuseppe and his second wife, Nathalie El Kanoni.{{Cite web|title=Giuseppe Volpi di Misurata|url=https://www.histouring.com/en/historical-figure/giuseppe-volpi-di-misurata/|access-date=2020-12-21|website=www.histouring.com}}

Giovanni Volpi founded a racing team, Scuderia Serenissima, in 1961 and quickly became one of Ferrari's best customers. In 1962, Scuderia Serenissima commissioned to Piero Drogo and Giotto Bizzarrini the design of the Ferrari 250 GT Drogo, also known as Ferrari Breadvan.{{Cite web|title=Count Giovanni Volpi on creating the Breadvan and GTO (excellent read for collectors)|url=https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/count-giovanni-volpi-on-creating-the-breadvan-and-gto-excellent-read-for-collectors.72735/|access-date=2020-12-21|website=FerrariChat - The world's largest Ferrari community|language=en-US}} At the end of the year, when a group of senior figures, including Bizzarrini and Carlo Chiti, left Ferrari to join Volpi and founded ATS, Volpi's relationship with Enzo Ferrari cooled. Ferrari consequently refused to sell Volpi two 250 GTOs he requested for his GT team.{{Cite web|last=Press|first=Porter|date=2018-10-25|title=Bizzarrini - the Rebel, the Count and the Commendatore|url=https://porterpress.co.uk/blogs/news/bizzarrini-the-rebel|access-date=2020-12-21|website=Porter Press International|language=en}}

Following a disastrous 1963 Formula One campaign, where drivers Phil Hill and Giancarlo Baghetti both failed to score championship points, ATS closed. Volpi subsequently continued with the Serenissima marque. Bruce McLaren used a Serenissima engine for a few Grands Prix in 1966.

Volpi is married to Dominique Rizzo and lives in Geneva.{{Cite web|date=2018-04-09|title=Matrimonio tra il conte Giovanni Volpi di Misurata e la bella Dominique Rizzo|url=https://nuovavenezia.gelocal.it/tempo-libero/2018/04/09/news/matrimonio-tra-il-conte-giovanni-volpi-di-misurata-e-la-bella-dominique-rizzo-1.16691814|access-date=2020-12-21|website=La Nuova di Venezia|language=it-IT}}