Notes:
Born Alfons František Kowaleski in Poland in 1918, the son of a garage owner, he escaped from his occupied country in the early part of the World War II and crossed Europe to Portugal where he got a boat going to what he thought was America, but the boat landed him at Liverpool. There he joined the 1st Polish Armoured Division for the remainder of World War II. He became a naturalized British citizen and changed his name to Alf Francis.

He appeared on the racing scene immediately after the end of hostilities as the mechanic to the British rising star Stirling Moss and to Geoffrey Taylor’s GP Alta. By 1950 he looked after the HWM team in the days when John Heath and George Abecassis were competing in the European scene with their British team. Alf Francis was not only the chief mechanic but a team manager for HWM.

After preparing Peter Whitehead's Ferrari Formula 1 car for the 1952 season, Alf Francis then rejoined Moss in 1954 for his Maserati days. While working with the Maserati factory to ensure that the car was up to expectations, he met and established lifelong relationships with Guerino Bertocchi and the coachbuilder Medardo Fantuzzi. Although the Moss' "Green Maserati" 250F was an independent entry, the works team supported the equipe as if a factory car, Moss being by far the best Maserati driver.

Then Francis ran Rob Walker's successful little racing team, developing the Cooper-Climax, which in turn led to him working again with Moss. "Francis was an amazing bloke"- once Moss said - "he could be bloody irascible and knew nothing about designing a car, but as a mechanic, particularly as an improviser, he was a genius. I trusted him absolutely."

After a spell in Italy with Valerio Colotti on gearbox design, Alf Francis tried to resurrect the Italian ATS marque in the Derrington-Francis Formula 1 project. The "Alf Francis Team" was established at Pontecchio Marconi, near Bologna and the car made its debut in the 1964 Italian Grand Prix, driven by Mario de Araújo Cabral, but retired with engine problems. Later in the season Dan Gurney destroyed the only chassis in private testing and the team was never seen again.

In 1965 Alf Francis worked for Count Giovanni Volpi di Misurata who had founded the Serenissima Automobili Company in Formigine, near Modena, building a mid-engined sportscar with a 3-litre V8 engine which was designed by former Maserati chief engineer Alberto Massimino. It was developed by Alf Francis and one year later the engine (type M166 also known as 308) was fitted into the Formula 1 McLaren M2B-2, which had a chassis designed by Robin Herd. Bruce McLaren worked personally on the car driving it to an impressive sixth place in the British Grand Prix on 16 July 1966. In 1967 Alf Francis redesigned and modified a McLaren M2B-2 chassis in Formigine, and installed a Serenissima V8 engine with new cylinder heads and a new body created by Medardo Fantuzzi, with aerodynamics wings. The new Formula 1 car was named Serenissima M1AF McLaren ("AF" for Alf Francis). Mike Parkes, Lodovico Scarfiotti and Alf Francis himself tested it at Modena circuit, but the team was short of money and the project was abandoned. Then Alf Francis presented the Serenissima Mk168, 3-litre sportscar which finished a creditable second in the 1968 Coppa Città di Enna at Pergusa, driven by Jonathan Williams, only beaten by Jo Siffert in a works Porsche 910. In 1969 Williams drove again that car, scoring a third place at Salzburgring and a sixth place in the Preis von Tirol, at Innsbruck.

In the 1970s Alf Francis moved to America where he worked with various classic cars restorers and collectors. In Oklahoma City he worked at Breene Kerr's foreign car dealership. Kerr's divorce caused the demise of the business. Alf Francis died in July 1983 in Oklahoma City at the age of 65.

Career Summary:

• Social Security Death Index.
• Book "Alf Francis, Racing Mechanic, 1948-88: The Cars, the Drivers, the Inside Story" by Peter lewis, G.T. Foulis & Co., LTD. London, 1991, ISBN-10: 0854299378.
• Magazine MotorSport, issue of August 1983, page 895, article "Obituary: Alf Francis" by Denis Jenkinson.
• Magazine MotorSport, issue of May 2011, page 44.
• Magazine Auto Italiana, issue 18 June 1964, page 25.
• Newspaper The Times (London, England, United Kingdom), issue of Friday, 15 July 1983, page 14, obituary "Alf Francis".
• Website AUTOSPORT → Forums → The Nostalgia Forum, thread "Alf Francis and his workshop ad Modena", page http://forums.autosport.com/showthread.php?s=fb300b78b254f435a8a06cc5c506e2c3&threadid=96385 .
• Website Veloce Today - The Online Magazine for Italian and French Car Enthusiasts!, page http://www.velocetoday.com/lifestyle/lifestyle_36.php .
• Website Serenissima - WOI Encyclopedia Italia, page http://www.wheelsofitaly.com/wiki/index.php/Serenissima .