Alex
I guess it is all a case of where you choose to start or stop counting both in number of turns and kilometers.
The northern side is well documented on several websites (e.g.
Stelvio Pass - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, etc.) as to how many truns there are with each turn being numbered from the bottom to the top. It starts with #48 at the bottom counting down as you climb.
On the other side, the numbers count up as you descend and seemed far less than the number of turns we took on the way up. In any case, the south side is a much better driving road than the north side from my perspective.
Regardless of how you look at it, it is still a drive worth doing.
Mike