The Chairman of the UFI Filters Group, Giorgio Girondi, shares with L’Economia of Il Corriere della Sera on August 5th the story of the company’s successes. From the 1970s when Maranello’s technicians chose UFI filters for the Formula 1 car tested directly by Niki Lauda, to the 1978 victory at the Silverstone Grand Prix with Carlos Reutemann, thanks also to the filters produced by the UFI Group, which now supplies 9 out of 10 Formula 1 teams. Not just Motorsport, UFI technologies are chosen by 95% of global car manufacturers.
Chariman Girondi also discusses the company’s beginnings in China, from the 1980s to the recent opening of the seventh plant, UFI Green. This facility, powered by green energy, is dedicated to technologies for electric vehicles. The Group’s history is marked by a strong presence in the Dragon Country with 7 production sites, making it one of the Italian companies that accompanied Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on her recent trip to China. Currently, the Group has 21 production sites worldwide, including 3 in Italy, with a new upcoming plant dedicated to the industrialization of catalyzed membranes for green hydrogen production, located in the province of Trento, thanks to NewCo UFI HYDROGEN.
But the story doesn’t end here; Girondi is looking to the future and to space, and is already thinking about applying UFI technologies to a hybrid hydrogen aircraft by 2035.
Read the full article on the Corriere della Sera website:
Here below the full translation of the interview:
From F1 to China, Italy’s Ufi Filters has become a leader with car filters. Hydrogen is the new challenge
by Alessia Cruciani
President Giorgio Girondi: ‘We supply 95 per cent of global car manufacturers, turnover 2024 will reach EUR 600 million. And a new plant is under construction in Trento’
“Bon, la macchina l’è pronta: el filtro el tien’. Addressing Enzo Ferrari in perfect Emilian dialect is Austrian driver Niki Lauda. Luckily there is an eyewitness to report this episode; otherwise who would believe it. It is 1977 in Maranello, and the founder of the House of the Prancing Horse has made the champion’s single-seater try out a technical novelty. And the witness is the very man who made it: Giorgio Girondi, Chairman of UFI Filters since 1976, which has gone from being a small company to a world leader in filtration systems with 21 industrial sites in 21 countries, more than 4,000 employees and a turnover of 580 million euros. A success story achieved thanks to two episodes, two sliding doors, that the entrepreneur was able to seize. The company was founded in Nogarole Rocca (Verona, Italy) in 1971 by Girondi’s father, who held just 6%, with two other partners. His father’s intention was to sell his share, but when he passed away, Giorgio entered the company and took over the entire 100%. It is 1976, and shortly afterwards two technicians from Maranello, passing along the Brennero motorway, noticed the sign “UFI Filters” and decided to stop. It was the first turning point. “They asked us who we were and if we could make a filter that could withstand the 17,000 revs of the Ferrari engine,” Girondi recounts. ‘We started working day and night and made a 1.8 kg filter that could withstand all pressures. Being able to get into F1 was one of the biggest thrills. A few weeks ago I went back to watch the British GP at Silverstone, where in 1978 Carlos Reutemann’s Ferrari drove the first red car that used our filters to victory. From ‘83-‘84 we also became suppliers for Ferrari’s road cars. Today we supply 9 out of 10 teams, but by 2026 they will all be Alpine as well. Not only F1, because UFI Filters is a protagonist in all Motorsport, from MotoGP to Indycar, from the 24 Hours of Le Mans to Superbike, but also supplies 95 per cent of the world’s car manufacturers, as well as trucks, tractors, excavators, helicopters, drones, and also medical water filtration through its participation in other companies. A commitment that should bring the 2024 turnover to 600 million euros, 5% of which is reinvested in research.
In the East
The second turning point came in the 1980s, when “a Chinese delegation came to see me and wanted to conclude an agreement with Fiat and Fiat Tractors. But the lawyer Agnelli said that there were no roads in China and so he wasn’t interested. Volkswagen was. And we offered to provide our technology to make filters in China.” Thus began a rapidly developing relationship with the government and industry in Beijing. “In 1982, we made the first air, oil, and petrol filter plant in China by selling them our technology. Then we started making turnkey plants for the whole world, especially Russia, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland. But also in India, up to exporting to the United States and Australia’.
Not only the past and present, but also the future for the president of UFI Filters is played out in China: “They have the most advanced technology in the world in electrics. There is now talk of robotaxis with Tesla, but they have already been there for two years in China”. UFI Filters was part of the group of Italian companies that accompanied Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on her recent trip to China. A positive experience for Girondi, according to whom “the Prime Minister’s intervention was useful to explore new possibilities for collaboration and to re-establish relations with a country of strategic importance for technological development. As UFI, we can offer a significant contribution in the automotive and hydrogen sectors.”
Development
In addition to the seven plants in China, UFI Filters has others in India, Korea, Brazil, Mexico, Tunisia, Poland, the Czech Republic, and three in Italy (Bergamo, Cesena, and Mantua). The headquarters remained in Nogarole Rocca, where the history of innovation in the world of filters was made, as the manager recounts: “Before the 2000s, filters were made of cellulose. We were the first to introduce synthetic fibres, solving the huge problem of the common rail. Fiat invented it and gave it to Bosch but, when it was used, water would get stuck on the injectors, create rust, and then the common rail would stop. We made a filter capable of separating the water with the help of synthetic fibres. With this success we became famous. After that we also brought oil filtration with synthetic fibres. The life of these filters is 60-100 thousand kilometres compared to 20 thousand kilometres in the past. The latest invention is the MultiTube, a very light filter that gives some engines 4% more horsepower.”
There are 320 patents held by the company, and perhaps more will come, since the new frontier UFI Filters has been working on for years is hydrogen. Thanks to funds from a European project and the 4 million euros assigned for research by the Province of Trento, the company is developing membranes to separate hydrogen from oxygen: “We have already been working for seven years on these filters: it is a difficult adventure in which we have set out to anticipate what will happen.” In recent weeks, UFI Filters has reached an agreement with the workers at the plant in the province of Mantua, in Marcaria, with a voluntary redundancy plan due to “customers who have not renewed the development of certain projects,” Girondi clarifies. “At the same time, we are building a new plant in Serravalle (Trento), for the industrialisation of catalysed membranes for the production of green hydrogen.”
And it is precisely to sustainable technologies that the new plant in China is destined; it is called UFI Green and, as the Chairman explains, “it is completely eco-sustainable. Inside we produce thermal management parts to ensure that the battery of electric vehicles always stays between 23 and 25 degrees celsius. One of the biggest problems with the electric car is managing this system, because so many electric cars overheat.”
Meanwhile, Girondi also looks towards space.
“We are working with Airbus and for the moment we are at the research and development level. An aircraft needs a lot of power on take-off that hydrogen alone cannot guarantee. We are thinking of a hybrid system with hydrogen used for the flight phase. The first aircraft will arrive in 2035”.”
