Alfa Romeo’s Quadrifoglio badge, the four leaf clover, has an impressive and storied past. Alfa Romeo enthusiast Brandon Adrian gives us a brief introduction to the icon’s history.
You don’t know a car until you know its history. Learn what the Quadrifoglio badge means to the history of #AlfaRomeo. @Petrolicious pic.twitter.com/IM2SXDbyxV
— Alfa Romeo USA (@AlfaRomeoUSA) April 11, 2017
The badge is a nod to Alfa Romeo’s racing history and the brand’s many victories. It’s also a memorial of the tougher times. Michael Banovsky wrote a nice piece for Petrolicious about the legendary badge and its beginning, which we’ll briefly recap here.
Enzo Ferrari was down on his luck when his good friend Ugo Sivocci offered him the next available job at small automaker CMN. Sivocci got Ferrari behind the wheel as a test driver. Ferrari was later hired by Alfa Romeo, and he brought Sivocci with him. The pair made up half of Alfa Romeo’s factory racing team.
Sivocci was fast, but he rarely won races. Sick of missing out on victory, Sivocci added a four leaf clover in a white diamond to his Alfa Romeo for the 1923 Targa Florio and won. Sadly, he died later that year during practice at the Monza Grand Prix. The Quadrifoglio had not yet been painted on his Alfa Romeo.
After Sivocci’s death, Alfa Romeo kept the Quadrifoglio but removed one of the diamond’s points, leaving us the triangle emblem that is still used today. The badge has since adorned countless successful cars both on the race track and on public roads.
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