Lou Brero

The Ferrari 375MM owned by Lou Brero, which has been in a garage for 50 years and then extensively restored

Lou Brero (born December 27, 1909 in Nice , † April 21, 1957 in Honolulu ) was an American racing car driver .

Career

Although an amateur, Lou Brero was one of the top drivers on the American sports car scene in the 1950s. Brero drove a wide variety of cars in this context. He bought racing cars and used them under his own name. He owned vehicles as diverse as a Kurtis Kraft 500S , which had cost $ 1,200 in 1955 , and a $ 37,500 Ferrari 375MM . There was a special reason for the 375MM. The winning car of the 1000 km race at the Nürburgring in 1953 , driven by Giuseppe Farina and Alberto Ascari at the time , was a Scuderia Ferrari works car and was sold to Brero after the Carrera Panamericana in 1954 . After his death in 1957, the car was hidden behind a tractor trailer in a garage in California for 50 years before a collector found it and completely restored it.

Brero's greatest international success was fourth overall in the 1957 Sebring 12-hour race , together with Masten Gregory at the wheel of a Ferrari 290S . In April 1957 Brero had a serious accident at the Hawaii International Sports Car Race, as a result of which he died a little later in the Queens Hospital in Honolulu. He left behind his wife Dolores, a son and two daughters.

statistics

Sebring results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1956	AA Browne	Jaguar D-Type	Sam Weiss	failure	Clutch damage
1957	George Tilp	Ferrari 290S	Masts Gregory	Rank 4

Individual results in the sports car world championship

season	team	race car	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th
1956	Albert Browne	Jaguar D-Type	BUA	SEB	MIM	ONLY	KRI
				DNF
1957	George Tilp	Ferrari 290S	BUA	SEB	MIM	ONLY	LEM	KRI	CAR
				4th

Web links

Commons : Lou Brero  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Image: Lou Brero at the wheel of his Ferrari 375MM 1955 in Nassau