Early on, the Scuderi Group had so little success in approaching auto engineers that it contacted Ford Motor Co. through a man who had been a prep-school advisor of William C. Ford, great-grandson of Henry Ford.

The engine was conceived by Carmelo Scuderi, the son of Italian immigrants. Born in 1925, he got a job on a farm during the Depression and learned to tinker with engines. In 1943, he joined the Navy, wore his uniform to his high school graduation, and was put in charge of the giant engines powering a ship designed to land tanks and trucks on a beach. In the days after the Normandy invasion, it became a hospital ship and he helped tend the many wounded brought aboard.

After the war, he married, started a family, studied engineering on the G.I. Bill and landed at a defense contractor. Later he started his own engineering firm and developed test equipment and military fire trucks.

At home he pushed his children. He once offered his oldest son, Steven, a dollar if he could learn to stand on his hands. Later he paid out more dollars when Steven and his siblings learned to walk up the stairs on their hands. Eventually Mr. Scuderi set up used gymnastics equipment in their tiny backyard. Steven, Salvatore and Cindy Scuderi--who all now work at the Scuderi Group–and another son, Angelo, all eventually went to college on gymnastics scholarships.