Gordon Murray
I’ve recently managed to buy a classic that I’ve been craving for years – an OSCA 1600GT with coachwork by legendary carrozzeria Zagato
fondly recalls what the Maseratis did next with a Zagato OSCA
My classic car collection is rather eclectic, but there are some themes that run through it. Most are sports and racing cars, all of them are small and most of them are lightweight. Another common trend is that most are beautifully designed, whether in a classic or technical sense.
I particularly love small, specialist Italian cars from the Sixties, because during this period I was living through my formative years in South Africa. It was also the golden era for Italian coachbuilders and I always followed Zagato – its designs were attractive and unusual. I have a couple of Zagato designs – a 1958 Abarth 750 ‘Double Bubble’ and a 1971 Alfa Romeo Junior Zagato currently being built by Alfaholics.
When I set out to add to my classic collection, one of the first cars on my list was an OSCA 1600GT with Zagato coachwork. I’ve had a go at buying a few of them during the past three years but never
managed to bag one. The car appeals to me on so many different levels and it remains one of the most interesting coachbuilt cars from that period. Last week I finally managed to buy a 1963 car in silver at the Bonhams auction in Zoute, Belgium.
Set up by Ernesto, Ettore and Bindo Maserati in 1947 after leaving the car manufacturing company that bore their surname, Officine Specializzate Costruzione
Automobili (OSCA for short) had numerous successes with small-capacity engines and some very good sports and racing car designs in the late Forties and Fifties. The early engines were based on Fiat cylinder blocks with OSCA aluminum cylinder heads, but in 1950 a new 1500cc twin-cam engine was designed. By this time Fiat had a tie-up with OSCA and in 1958 a contract was agreed for it to produce a new twin-cam 1500 engine.
With an eye on producing racing cars for private customers, the Maserati brothers designed a high-performance version of the 1568cc twin-cam and planned a lightweight aluminum-bodied coupé specifically aimed at racing. Unfortunately, in the end only a handful of cars were raced. Production numbers are a little hazy but estimates vary from 60 built to around 120. The majority of bodies were Zagato and this is by far the prettiest car.
My example is, unusually, in silver grey; and the Zagato body is fantastic with the trademark double-bubble roof and beautiful proportions, styled by Zagato’s Ercole Spada. It has disc brakes and independent suspension, a delightful twin-cam engine and weighs about 800kg; it could be my Italian Lotus Elan.
The OSCA is as close as I have come to owning a Maserati car, although back in 1962, when I was 16 years old, my father bought me a non-running 50cc 1957 Maserati motorbike for £10. I rebuilt the engine and proceeded to ride/crash the bike until I was 18, when I progressed to a car. The Maserati 50 I now have hanging on my workshop wall cost me considerably more than £10!