For some folks, Italian cars are synonymous with mid-engine supercars:
Lamborghini Countach LP500S. Even more emblematic of Italian mid-engined supercardom than Ferrari, Lamborghini is run by a gent named Winkelmann. This is because Lamborghini is now a branch of Volkswagen. 2042 Countachs were produced between 1974 and 1992.
The mid-engine formula has, however, been kicking around in Italy for decades:
68 Alfa Romeo.
A 2006 Alfa built for the same market, but with engine relocated:
Not much has changed in the styling department.
The legendary Ferrari Enzo, dethroned perhaps as the King of Supercars by the now-German Bugatti, but an honorable has-been:
400 Ferrari Enzos were produced in 2003-2004. Pininfarina was the designer.
Pagani Zonda exceeds 200mph for its 25-or-so annual customers.
Other folks think of automotive Italy as the home of terminally-cute minicars:
1957 Autobianchi, a Fiat 500 variant.
The most micro of minivans, a Fiat Multipla packed three rows of seating into 139 inches of length ?17 inches shorter than a current Mini with its two rows:
Built between 1956 and 1965, the Multipla (a 1964 in photo) could rocket to 57mph with its 21hp engine ?hardly a supercar, but much-loved by Italy?s largish families of the time. Since then, the country?s birth rate has plummeted.
Current king of cute is the new, retro-styled Fiat 500, here shown in Abarth?s high performance version:
For ages, Abarth has issued pocket rockets on tiny Fiat platforms:
1958 Fiat Abarth 750 Record Monza, body by Zagato.
Yet others associate Italian car production with designer flights of fancy. Going out on a limb is always risky; even the great Pininfarina occasionally fell out of the tree:
56 Ferrari 410 Superfast.
The best of these stylistic extravagances was the series of one-off BATs that Bertone produced as styling exercises in 1954 and 1955:
1954 BAT 7.
1955 BAT 9.
BAT 9.
Though veering towards bankruptcy, Bertone unveiled BAT 11 this year in Geneva:
Just as in architecture, all the old guys are doing retro futurism.
But truth is, the all-time pinnacle of Italian car styling was achieved in the mid-Fifties, when coachbuilders unleashed a tsunami of automotive beauty that surpassed the works of even the Figonis and Saoutchiks of Thirties France. Cars with astonishing purity of form and line sprang from drawing boards and artisans? hammers. The results were classic in every sense --
pur sang:
1952 Siata Barchetta by Bertone.
Frua was especially known for delicately detailed Maseratis of ravishing beauty. Two A6G Spyders by Frua; cars like this regularly sell at auction for over $300k:
1954.
1952.
The Versace of his time, Zagato grafted his mannered detailing and his voluptuous lines onto Ferrari and Maserati alike:
56 Ferrari 250GT sports Zagato?s trademark bubble-top and fussy but appetizing headlight treatment. This may be the most gorgeous Ferrari I?ve seen. Wonder what it would bring at auction --surely over a million.
56 Maserati A6G 2000 Zagato.
Pininfarina sometimes veered to angularity?
57 Ferrari Superamerica.
?unlike his colleague Vignale, who favored billowing curves:
56 Ferrari.
But perhaps Farina?s greatest achievement was the Lancia Aurelia, its near-perfect lines at once racy and reserved:
53 Lancia Aurelia. Was ever a classic radiator so deftly blended into speedy modern form?
In these years, even mass-market cars scaled the highest peaks of styling elegance. Bertone?s various iterations of the Alfa Giulietta Coupe may show the best proportions ever to grace a small car; and because a fair number were sold on these shores, there?s bound to be a couple at the Larz Anderson show (and because they?re not so valuable, they?ll probably show some wear like this one:
1961 Alfa Romeo Giulietta.
Earlier Alfas were no slouches either:
49 Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 SS Villa d'Este.
1938, the Mussolini era. Il Duce was an enthusiast of architecture and cars; he encouraged stylish tendencies in both.
A brawny, wind-in-your-hair roadster from the same year and marque, Italy?s greatest (not Ferrari):
1938 Alfa Romeo 8C-2900 Roadster by Touring.
And from the beginning of Zagato?s career, that stylist?s most revered design ?and Alfa?s greatest ever:
1931 AlfaRomeo 6C 1750 Gran Sport Touring Flying Star.
Competing with Hispano Suiza and Duesenberg for the business of Hollywood stars, Isotta-Fraschini cut a dashing figure (Rudolph Valentino owned one):
1930 Isotta-Fraschini by Castagna.
A veteran Lancia Alfa testifies to the long and distinguished history of car-making in Italy:
Sunday, August 3: there?s no place on the planet I?d rather be --if I could-- than the Larz Anderson Museum for this show.
