Karl LudvigsenAmerican writer (born 1934)

This biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification.

Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons
that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if
potentially libelous or harmful.Find sources: "Karl Ludvigsen" – news ·
newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (August 2010) (Learn how and when to remove
this template message)
Karl E. LudvigsenBorn (1934-04-24) April 24, 1934 (age 88)Kalamazoo,
MichiganOccupationWriterAlma materPratt InstituteGenreAutomotive
journalismRelativesElliot "Lud" Ludvigsen (father)Websitewww.karlludvigsen.com
Karl E. Ludvigsen (born April 24, 1934) is a journalist, author, and historian of
the automotive industry and motor sports.

Personal life[edit]
Karl E. Ludvigsen was born on April 24, 1934 in Kalamazoo, Michigan.[1][2] He was
the son of Elliot "Lud" Ludvigsen, an engineer and executive of Eaton Corporation.
[3]
Karl Ludvigsen has been resident in England since 1980 and lives in Suffolk with
his wife Annette.

Education[edit]
He graduated Cum Laude from Phillips Exeter Academy, and attended both the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, studying engineering, and Pratt Institute
where he matriculated in industrial design.[1]

Career[edit]
Military service[edit]
In 1958–59, he served in the US Army Signal Corps in West Germany.[1]

Automotive industry[edit]
Ludvigsen worked as a designer at General Motors in 1956, Ludvigsen planned
experimental front-drive prototypes. He also 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. As a public-
affairs official with General Motors Overseas Operations in the 1960s, Ludvigsen
was responsible for all the company's product information outside the USA. He also
supervised its financial advertising abroad. Prior to that, he assisted the General
Motors technical staffs in press relations, with special emphasis on the Styling
Staff.
When 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. This led him and his company to become active in racing safety at the
end of the 1960s. 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.
At the end of the 1970s, Ludvigsen joined Fiat Motors of North America as vice
president of corporate affairs, with responsibilities including legal affairs and
relations with customers, dealers, governments and the press. He took part in the
product development of Fiat and Lancia cars both in the US and Turin. His team
obtained unprecedented public awareness for Fiat, Lancia, and Ferrari products in
the United States and successfully launched the Fiat Strada range.
In 1980, Ludvigsen joined Ford of Europe as a vice president. One of his briefs for
Ford included government affairs. This included European governmental assessments
and lobbying activities, as well as the preparation and presentation of Ford's
External Factors Study, a ten-year rolling forecast of the external environment
within which Ford would operate in Europe.
Another Ford of Europe responsibility for Ludvigsen was Ford's European motor
sports activity. This encompassed the design, engineering, tooling, production,
marketing, distribution and sale throughout Europe of special automobiles, light
trucks and parts. He 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. In addition, Ludvigsen played a key
role in the creation of the AC-Ghia and Barchetta prototype sports cars.

Writing career[edit]
Ludvigsen began his automotive writing and editing for MIT's Tech Engineering News
in 1953.[2] He 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.[1][2]
[4]
As an author, co-author or editor Ludvigsen has some four dozen books to his
credit. Four Ludvigsen books concern the Chevrolet Corvette, one of them that was
credited with sparking the Corvette hobby. He has written three times about
Mercedes-Benz, twice about its racing cars. His books on the latter subject have
won the Montagu Trophy (once) and the Nicholas-Joseph Cugnot Award (twice),[note 1]
both recognizing outstanding automotive historical writing. In 2001 he again
received the Cugnot award from the Society of Automotive Historians (SAH) for his
book about the early years of the Volkswagen, Battle for the Beetle. In 2002, he
was named a Friend of Automotive History by the SAH, the Society's highest award.
Since 1997, Ludvigsen has been drawing on the photographic resources of the
Ludvigsen Library to write and illustrate books on the great racing drivers. His
first title in this series was Stirling Moss: Racing with the Maestro. He followed
this with Jackie Stewart: Triple-Crowned King of Speed and Juan Manuel Fangio:
Motor Racing's Grand Master. Fourth in this series for Haynes Publishing was Dan
Gurney: The Ultimate Racer and fifth was Alberto Ascari: Ferrari's First Double
Champion.[6] Sixth and seventh in the series are Bruce McLaren—Life and Legacy of
Excellence and Emerson Fittipaldi—Heart of a Racer.
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. His introduction to At Speed, a book of Jesse
Alexander's racing photography, won the Ken W. Purdy Award for Excellence in
Automotive Journalism. Other motor-sports titles include Classic Grand Prix Cars, a
history of the front-engined G.P. car, and Classic Racing Engines, Ludvigsen's
personal selection of 50 notable power units.
Karl Ludvigsen is the author of definitive histories of Porsche and Opel. His
Porsche history, Excellence was Expected, is considered to be a model of the
researching and writing of the history of an auto company. The updated edition was
published in three volumes by Bentley Publishers in 2003. In 1997, 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. He updated
and expanded this work for Ferrari's 60th anniversary in 2007. He is the author of
a series of monographs on great Maserati cars.
In co-operation with publisher Iconografix, Ludvigsen has established a series of
photographic books now numbering some nineteen titles, including books on Indy
racing cars from the Speedway's first contest in 1911 through the 1970s, the Indy
Novis, Chevrolet's Corvair and Corvette, the Mercedes-Benz 300SLs of 1952 and 1954–
64, the Porsche Spyders and Porsche 917, the Ferrari Factory, Can-Am racing cars,
the sports-racers of Briggs Cunningham and Jim Hall's Chaparral cars. More titles
are in preparation.
On motor-industry topics Karl Ludvigsen has written books about high-performance
engines, the Wankel rotary engine and the histories of American auto makers. He was
editor of The Future of the Automobile, the report of the 1981–84 study of the
world auto industry by MIT. This was named one of the best business books of the
year by Business Week. In the 1980s, he established Euromotor Reports Limited, for
which he wrote and edited numerous research studies.

Collections[edit]
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.[2] As well
it holds original photos and glass negatives from the dawn of the automotive era.

Consulting and later career[edit]

In 1996, publishers in Britain and the United States launched Karl Ludvigsen's book
on motor-industry management, Creating the Customer-Driven Car Company. It advises
industry personnel on customer-pleasing best practice researched during 15 years of
in charge of a London-based motor-industry management consultancy, which he founded
in 1983. Ludvigsen and his team worked for most of the world's leading motor
manufacturers in strategic planning, brand reinforcement, distribution, company
structure and organization, mergers and acquisitions, and on design and engineering
issues.
From 1980 through 1984, 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. He also chaired the Auto & Transport Design Forum,
an international conference on design and transport infrastructures held in Lugano,
Switzerland and Stuttgart, Germany. His tutorial responsibilities have included the
Syracuse University, The Royal College of Art and the Bavarian Academy of
Advertising.
Ludvigsen has been a Member of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) since 1960
and has been active on both Standards and Activities Committees of the SAE.[2] He
is currently a member of the Historical Committee. He 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. Ludvigsen is an honorary member of the Vintage
Sports Car Club of America and the Corvair Society of America.[2] He is also a
member of the council of Historic Automobile Group.
Currently, he writes for Road & Track, Automobile Quarterly, The Automobile and
Hemmings Sports & Exotic Cars, among others, plus various one-make periodicals and
website publications Winding Road and Just-Auto.com.[7]

Books[edit]
Creating the Customer-Driven Car Company. International Thomas Business Press,
1996. ISBN 978-0412737602.
Stirling Moss: Racing with the Maestro. Patrick Stephens Limited, 1997. ISBN 978-
1852605643.
Jackie Stewart: Triple-Crowned King of Speed. Sparkford, UK: Haynes Publishing,
1998. ISBN 978-1859604366.
Juan Manuel Fangio: Motor Racing's Grand Master. Sparkford, UK: Haynes Publishing,
1999. ISBN 978-1859606254.
Dan Gurney: The Ultimate Racer. Sparkford, UK: Haynes Publishing, 2000. ISBN 978-
1859606551.
Alberto Ascari: Ferrari's First Double Champion. Sparkford, UK: Haynes Publishing,
2000. ISBN 978-1859606803.
Battle for the Beetle. Cambridge, MA: Bentley Publishers, 2000. ISBN 0-8376-0071-5.
Classic Racing Engines. Sparkford, UK: Haynes Publishing, 2001. ISBN 1-85960-649-0.
Bruce McLaren: Life and Legacy of Excellence. Sparkford, UK: Haynes Publishing,
2002. ISBN 978-1859608241.
Emerson Fittipaldi: Heart of a Racer. Sparkford, UK: Haynes Publishing, 2002.
ISBN 978-1859608371.
The V12 Engine. Sparkford, UK: Haynes Publishing, 2005. ISBN 1-84425-004-0.
Classic Grand Prix Cars: The Front-Engined Era, 1906-1960. Sparkford, UK: Haynes
Publishing, 2006. (2nd Ed.) ISBN 1-84425-318-X.
BRM V16. Veloce Publishing, 2006. ISBN 978-1-84584-037-2.
Porsche: Excellence Was Expected. Cambridge, MA: Bentley Publishers, 2008. ISBN 0-
8376-0235-1.[4]
Ferdinand Porsche, Genesis of Genius: Road, Racing and Aviation Innovation, 1900 to
1933. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Bentley Publishers, 2009. ISBN 978-0837615578.
Colin Chapman: Inside the Innovator. Sparkford, UK: Haynes Publishing, 2010.
ISBN 1-84425-413-5.
Professor Porsche's Wars. Pen & Sword Military, 2014. ISBN 978-1-52672-679-7.
Reid Railton: Man of Speed. Evro Publishing, 2018. ISBN 1910505250.
German Racing Silver. Ian Allan Publishing, 2009. ISBN 978-0711033689.
Italian Racing Red. Ian Allan Publishing, 2008. ISBN 0711033315.
Notes[edit]

^ Battle for the Beetle (2001) & Ferdinand Porsche, Genesis of Genius: Road,
Racing and Aviation Innovation, 1900 to 1933 (2009)[5]

References[edit]

^ a b c d McCourt, Mark (January 2019). "Karl Ludvigsen". hemmings.com. Retrieved 3

January 2021.

^ a b c d e f Ludvigsen, Karl (2011). "Karl E. Ludvigsen papers, 1905-2011" (PDF).

revsinstitute.org. Miles Collier Collections. pp. 4–5. Retrieved 3 January 2021.
{{cite encyclopedia}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)

^ "Little Wheel at Fuller". bentleypublishers.com. Retrieved 3 January 2021.

^ a b Beresford, Colin. "Summer Reading." Car and Driver, July 2020, pp. 16-17.

^ "The Nicholas-Joseph Cugnot Award". Society of Automotive Historians.

^ "Book of the Week." The Independent, March 26, 2001. Archived from the original
on November 4, 2012.

^ "Karl Ludvigsen Biography". karlludvigsen.com. Retrieved 3 January 2021.

Authority control International

ISNI
VIAF
WorldCat
National
Norway
France
BnF data
Germany
United States
Japan
Czech Republic
Netherlands
Poland
Academics
CiNii
People
Deutsche Biographie
Other
SNAC
IdRef