30 Facts About Karl Ludvigsen

1.

Karl E Ludvigsen was born on April 24,1934 and is a journalist, author, and historian of the automotive industry and motor sports.

2.

Karl E Ludvigsen was born on April 24,1934, in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

3.

Karl Ludvigsen was the son of Elliot "Lud" Ludvigsen, an engineer and executive of Eaton Corporation.

4.

Karl Ludvigsen has been resident in England since 1980 and lives in Suffolk with his wife Annette.

5.

Ludvigsen worked as a designer at General Motors in 1956, Ludvigsen planned experimental front-drive prototypes.

6.

Karl Ludvigsen worked on the design and development of heavy-duty truck transmissions in the engineering and experimental departments of the Fuller Manufacturing, a subsidiary of the Eaton Corporation.

7.

When Karl Ludvigsen was president of Formula 1 Enterprises, an importer and distributor of motor vehicle equipment, several of his friends were injured in motor racing accidents.

8.

Karl Ludvigsen helped invent the practical modern Halon-gas fire extinguishing system for racing vehicles and founded the Motor Racing Safety Society to bring together professionals working in this field.

9.

Karl Ludvigsen took part in the product development of Fiat and Lancia cars both in the US and Turin.

10.

Karl Ludvigsen's team obtained unprecedented public awareness for Fiat, Lancia, and Ferrari products in the United States and successfully launched the Fiat Strada range.

11.

In 1980, Karl Ludvigsen joined Ford of Europe as a vice president.

12.

Karl Ludvigsen was in charge of the design and launching of the RS1600i Escort, which was named Motor Sports Car of the Year in France and which led Ford's RS Products operation to record profitability.

13.

Karl Ludvigsen began his automotive writing and editing for MIT's Tech Engineering News in 1953.

14.

Karl Ludvigsen has served as technical editor of both Auto Age and Sports Cars Illustrated, east coast editor of Motor Trend and editor of Car and Driver.

15.

Karl Ludvigsen has written three times about Mercedes-Benz, twice about its racing cars.

16.

Since 1997, Karl Ludvigsen has been drawing on the photographic resources of the Karl Ludvigsen Library to write and illustrate books on the great racing drivers.

17.

Karl Ludvigsen followed this with Jackie Stewart: Triple-Crowned King of Speed and Juan Manuel Fangio: Motor Racing's Grand Master.

18.

Also in the field of motor sports, Karl Ludvigsen has written about the cars of the Can-Am series, the AAR Eagle racing cars, the Ford GT40s and Prime Movers, the story of Britain's Ilmor Engineering.

19.

Karl Ludvigsen is the author of definitive histories of Porsche and Opel.

20.

In 1997, Karl Ludvigsen researched and wrote the catalogue for a special exhibition of Ferrari technological innovations on the occasion of the company's 50th anniversary and contributed a major section to the company's official 50-year history.

21.

Karl Ludvigsen updated and expanded this work for Ferrari's 60th anniversary in 2007.

22.

Karl Ludvigsen is the author of a series of monographs on great Maserati cars.

23.

On motor-industry topics Karl Ludvigsen has written books about high-performance engines, the Wankel rotary engine and the histories of American auto makers.

24.

Karl Ludvigsen has collected his library of the same name throughout his career and it now holds extensive original negatives and transparencies from the 1950s forward with special strengths in motor sports, American cars and sports cars.

25.

From 1980 through 1984, Karl Ludvigsen was a member of the Policy Forum of the MIT Future of the Automobile Programme, the most comprehensive trilateral study of the motor industry ever undertaken.

26.

Karl Ludvigsen has been a Member of the Society of Automotive Engineers since 1960 and has been active on both Standards and Activities Committees of the SAE.

27.

Karl Ludvigsen is currently a member of the Historical Committee.

28.

Karl Ludvigsen is a founder member of the International Motor Press Association and a member of the Society of Automotive Historians, the Society of Authors, the Society for the History of Technology and the Guild of Motoring Writers.

29.

Karl Ludvigsen is an honorary member of the Vintage Sports Car Club of America and the Corvair Society of America.

30.

Karl Ludvigsen is a member of the council of Historic Automobile Group.