And here, every now and then, another one of these small, elegant coupés comes out, built on a humble but solid base and dressed by a top-tier coachbuilder. The carmaker in question is (or rather, it was) Alfredo Vignale whose career was very eclectic: he built cars for rich industrialists and movie stars but he… Read More Little blue special: 1955 Fiat 600 Rendez Vous by Vignale
What we propose today is certainly not “the deal of the century”, but it is such a special car that it deserves to be mentioned. It is in fact an experiment carried out by the Moretti body shop for some very wealthy customers who were not satisfied with having “just” a Maserati 3500 GT, but… Read More Second life: 1966 Maserati 3500 GT by Moretti
Few cars built, fine finishes, based on a Fiat chassis and engine: it is the typical identikit of Italian custom-built cars from the 40s, 50s and 60s. This identikit is also true for this creature of one of the most famous Italian coachbuilders, Vittorino Viotti, certainly not as famous as Pininfarina, Bertone or Vignale, but… Read More Little big coachbuilt: 1960 Fiat 600 “Granluce” by Viotti
This is really a strange car and perplexes us for several reasons, starting with the bodywork that it is very familiar to us. In fact, as many of you have already suspected, this is a body already seen elsewhere: it was taken integrally from a Ghia 1500 Coupé, built from 1965 to 1967, and adapted… Read More Transformers: 1971 Coachbuilt Renault R177
It is not the first time that we find one of these very rare cars for sale: to be precise it is the second time, but the car published a few months ago was slightly different from this one. The reason is simple: unlike the first published here, this belongs to the first series (impossible… Read More More than rare: 1960 Fiat 600 Capri by Caprera
“Fuoriserie” in Italian means all the cars not mass-produced, and was a term used very much from the beginning of the century until the 60s, when the era of coachbuilders began to set. The particular thing was that the custom-built cars were not only extremely expensive cars, destined to the most elite band of… Read More Fuoriserie: 1957 Fiat 600 Rendez Vous by Vignale
These two very special cars have been an inseparable couple for many years, and not just because they were built by the same coachbuilder. The coachbuilder we are talking about is Enrico Maestri, owner of a small workshop in Piacenza, Italy, whom in 1939 had a commission from the gentlemen driver Paolo Butti. The contract… Read More The odd couple: 1948 Fiat 500 A Berlinetta – 1947 Fiat 500 B Barchetta by Maestri
How many of these wagons have you seen live or for sale in recent years? I’ll tell you: none, because this is an extremely rare car. It is in fact a special body made by Monterosa, a bodyshop very active in the first decade after WWII which was working in particular on Fiat. In fact, we… Read More Special wagon: 1951 Fiat 1100 E wagon by Monterosa
That’s not the very first time we publish an article about a “classic hearse”, but that’s for sure the first time we see one of these cars derived from a Fiat 1400, probably the only one in existence. Italian classic cars aficionados know well the Fiat 1400 which was produced both with metal and soft… Read More Do it in style: 1950 Fiat 1400 Hearse
Update, 03/26/2018: Here is the car at Jat Leno’s Garage show: 07/14/2016 We’ve already published a couple of article about the Appia Lusso, a Vignale coachbuilt Appia, but this is the only one in “barn find” conditions. Actually in Italy cars are barely stored in barns, most of the time you find these cars laying… Read More Factory paint: 1960 Lancia Appia Lusso by Vignale
