ISOTTA FRASCHINI
The first ever, recently put back on the road
Milan in Italy is many things to many people. For some it is the hub of the fashion industry, for others it is noted for two great football teams, or the river of culture that flows from La Scala theatre. In our world many acknowledge it as the original home of Alfa Romeo, but few are aware that Milan is where Italy’s car industry started at the end of the 19th Century. One of the leading lights of that era was Isotta Fraschini, known for its avant-garde mechanicals and peerless quality, and, amazingly, the very first Isotta Fraschini, chassis number one, still exists. It is called the Tipo 1902, despite being built in 1901.
In November 1896, 30-year-old Oreste Fraschini, a self-made man and the eldest of the five Fraschini brothers, bought his first car (a Benz) through Italian importer Giuseppe Ricordi of Milan. His younger brother Vincenzo campaigned it the following September in the Arona-Stresa-Arona race, the second such event organised in Italy. Four cars, all Benzes, took the start and Vincenzo finished second, ahead of Ricordi.
A year later, Milan-based Prinetti & Stucchi changed from building sewing machines and bicycles to cars, beginning with a quadricycle designed by Ettore Bugatti who was born in Milan in 1881 and had grown up on the same street as the Fraschini family. Meanwhile, Cesare Isotta, a lawyer born in 1870 on the shore of Lake Maggiore, moved to Milan to get involved in the nascent motor car movement.
Isotta, together with Oreste Fraschini and the other Fraschini brothers, plus Riccardo Bencetti, Paolo Meda and Ludovico Prinetti of Prinetti & Stucchi, established the Società Milanese d’Automobili Isotta Fraschini & C on 27 January 1900. They set up their headquarters in the north-west of Milan and soon lured Giuseppe Gaetano Stefanini from Turin-based Officine Martina, one of the first Italian manufacturers, as their technical consultant. The young firm aspired to something more than just distributing and repairing cars, and from the beginning imported more components than completed machines. So it was that in 1901 Isotta Fraschini manufactured its first eponymous car, a one-off named Model 1902, as a test before going into full-scale production.
The car was very simple. It was based on a Renault Type D tubular steel chassis with three transverse tubes (one at the front, one at the rear and one just below the wooden firewall), not the most advanced design of its period but very well assembled. Typical of the era, its engine was a 402cc single-cylinder De Dion-Bouton, wearing number 1246 and sourced from a used car.
‘The unit in the Isotta Fraschini is water-cooled and made its first appearance in 1899,’ says Nicholas Pellett, joint founder of the De Dion-Bouton Club UK. ‘A new version was released in May 1900 for De Dion-Bouton’s Type E “vis à vis”. This specific one has been modified. The atmospheric inlet valve dome has been replaced with an insert that sits inside the casting. The drive and starting
mechanisms are different from De Dion-Bouton’s, but the adjustable contact-breaker is of the correct type, although I think a replacement. The Zenith carburettor is from a much later period.’ To hide its origins, the engine’s De Dion-Bouton name was ground off.
More advanced was the transmission, proudly branded Isotta Fraschini, which spurned Renault-style chain drive in favour of its own three-speed Cardan-shaft transmission, which would characterise all the firm’s early models. There is no throttle pedal; acceleration is managed via a small lever located under the wooden steering wheel. External contracting drum brakes, fitted to the rear wheels only, are activated by a lever mounted outside the cockpit.
There are leaf springs for the beam axles, and the wooden firewall is used to support two brass tanks: one for the fuel (10 litres) and one for the oil (2.5 litres). Engine lubrication is pumped manually and an adjustable magneto provides ignition. A metal hood covers the engine and the evaporation-type radiator. There is little innovation but the Tipo 1902’s layout is advanced for the period, with a front-mounted engine and what we could describe as a conventional driving position.
There is no body, nor any marks on the chassis to show that a body was ever fitted. ‘There are a few period pictures,’ says owner and collector Corrado Lopresto, ‘but none shows this car with a body. We don’t even know if the car was ever really driven or used beyond some demonstration runs around the headquarters.’
The first Isotta Fraschini to enter series production would be the Tipo 6½hp of 1902, similar in size and layout but powered by a 669cc single-cylinder Aster engine. This was a common unit, manufactured in Paris and imported into Italy exclusively by Isotta Fraschini. The company was evolving and, thanks to a sales contract dated 1902 for a Renault sold by Isotta Fraschini, we know that Vincenzo Trucco was already its chief mechanic. He went on to become one of the most successful racers of this early period, and his
capabilities not only added speed to the IF cars but also hastened their development. Just a few months after being built, chassis number one was obsolete. Ironically, that’s where the incredible adventure of this car actually begins.
Instead of being scrapped or dismantled, it was carefully retained as testament to Isotta Fraschini’s origins. In 1904, the company became Società Anonima Fabbrica Automobili Isotta Fraschini and moved to new premises, about a mile from the original ones and 12 times the size. When the new factory was built, number one was carefully transported there to take its place on display at the entrance.
Isotta Fraschini expanded rapdily. During the next 30 years, with Giustino Cattaneo at the technical helm, it became one of the most important car manufacturers in the world. It built the world’s first straight-eight engines and patented the front-wheel brake. But in 1929, at the peak of its success, Isotta Fraschini was hit hard by the Wall Street Crash. At the same time, Henry Ford was looking to expand into Europe and reached an agreement with Isotta Fraschini.
The deal was for Isotta Fraschini to build 5000 chassis per year for five years, at new premises near its Viale Monte Rosa factory. And so, in January 1931, Isotta Fraschini celebrated its 30th anniversary by giving its very first car to Henry Ford for him to display in the newly opened Edison Institute, later to become the Henry Ford Museum. On 2 July the car left Milan to be loaded onto the SS Conte Grande, a cruise ship built in Trieste in 1927, and headed to New York.
The only modification from 1901 was a brass plate riveted on the radiator’s fins with the following inscription, written in Italian: ‘A present from the Fabbrica Automobili Isotta Fraschini to Henry Ford, Milan, January 1931, on the 30th anniversary of Isotta Fraschini’s foundation.’ On 30 September, ‘HF’ (most likely Henry Ford himself ) signed a thank-you letter to Gian Riccardo Cella, then the chief executive of Isotta Fraschini, noting that a prominent space would be given to the car.
‘There is no body, nor are there any marks on the chassis to show that a body was ever fitted’
In August the following year, JA Humberstone of the Ford Motor Museum wrote to Isotta Fraschini, asking for the exact manufacturing date of the car and a catalogue describing it. A rather odd reply was signed by technical director Giustino Cattaneo: ‘The one-cylinder engine, type 1900, was built by our factory in 1899/1900 and I regret not to be able to send a description of the model because it is not in our possession any more.’
Cattaneo, technical father of the most successful IF, was part of the technical team in 1902 at the old headquarters and knew the car well. And while the little car was spending time in Michigan, relations between Isotta Fraschini and Ford began to deteriorate. Fiat was a strong political lobbyist; unhappy with Ford’s incursion into the Italian market, it used its power and its workforce to create turmoil. After strikes, and with Giovanni Agnelli making his presence felt in Rome, a new law was signed that required Government approval to open a new factory. Such approval would never be given to Ford. The final nail in this coffin was World War Two.
Over in Michigan, the life of chassis number one proceeded as normal for a car owned by a big and important museum, sometimes on display, other times hidden away among the reserve cars. As recently as 1980, John A Conde, curator of transportation collections at the Henry Ford Museum, declared that the Isotta was acquired in Italy and ‘has not previously been titled in the State of Michigan, being on display and then in storage at the HF Museum since 1931’. Despite the unhelpful reply from Cattaneo 54 years before, Ford’s custodians carried out a thorough research job and in 1982, when tidying the museum’s reserve warehouse, they put the Isotta Fraschini into an auction organised by Hudson & Marchall Inc.
And so chassis number one was offered for sale for the first time in its then 81-year history. The technical and historical descriptions of the ‘chassis-only Isotta Fraschini Number 1, with 1 cylinder vertical engine under the hood’, were absolutely correct. It was bought, along with a 1912 Ford Model T Special and a 1914 Abbott Detroit, by David D Woloch of Akron, Ohio, who sold a Mercedes-Benz 300SL to pay for them. His son David Jr still remembers the ‘lawnmower’ sound of the Isotta’s engine when his father started it.
Mr Woloch Sr described the car’s historical importance in a letter he sent in 1986 to (the long-since defunct) Fabbrica Isotta Fraschini Milano and copied to the Isotta Fraschini Owners’ Association in the USA. In 1994 he was still looking for additional documents about it at the Ford museum. Woloch passed away in 2009 and his wife Jeanne lent the cars to the Canton Classic Car Museum of Akron, while asking a local trader to sell them. Classic car dealer Mark Hyman of St Louis, Missouri, then entered the scene.
‘In early 2013 I was visiting the Canton museum, because I knew it was selling some pieces of the collection, and I spotted the Isotta. They told me that the car was on loan as an exhibit. Soon after, I visited Bob Lichty, a classic car trader in Akron, and asked him about it. He surprised me, replying that maybe the car could be for sale and gave me the phone number of the lady owner. We quickly reached an agreement. I thought it was a wonderful car with a wonderful story behind it, and I spoke about it with somebody I knew would understand my feelings, my dear friend Donald Osborne.’
And so the story moves along again. ‘It was 2013 when my American friend and expert in Italian cars, Donald Osborne, told me of a very special Isotta that was for sale in the USA,’ says Corrado Lopresto. ‘Not only was this the first Isotta, but it had a very clean history, was completely original and had never been restored.’ A few months later, the car was back in Italy. ‘My original idea was to keep it as it was, complete but not in running condition, but then Peter Read, chairman of the motoring committee of the Royal Automobile Club, invited the Isotta on the 2015 London to Brighton Run.’
Fabio Verin looks after the Lopresto collection. ‘I wasn’t given long to prepare the car,’ he says. ‘ We dismantled and checked everything, finding a well-kept engine and transmission that surprised me for being so technically advanced and well made. The main issues were that third gear needed to be rebuilt – and, of course, the general setting-up of a 114-year-old car that had not really been used for more than a century! We loaded the car for London, after a test drive that had lasted about 800 yards. I still consider its arrival in Brighton in 2015 to be one of the greatest miracles of my career.’
In the meantime Lopresto was facing a couple of issues. ‘The car never had a body, so it was missing a floor and seats. I didn’t want to fake a new recreation as old, so I went the opposite way: the floor is a piece of Plexiglas, to show the beauty and the simplicity of the chassis, with two wicker seats just bolted on a metal support to hold them. With those, I can drive the car and, in five minutes with a screwdriver, bring it back to 100% originality.
‘We kept the same approach in every single detail. We replaced the 1930s spark plug with a new one manufactured according to the 1902 American patent for it and the procedure of the time. It uses the correct light mica known as Ruby, a long-forgotten material which can’t cope with the tetraethyl lead used in fuel since the postwar years. It was given to me by Leonardo Sordi of Il Magnete, an association dedicated to remanufacturing ancient, unavailable parts.
‘A different approach was used to fix the cracked cast-iron brake lever. Instead of manufacturing a new one and making it look old, I welded it with titanium and covered the weld with two structural layers of bi-directional carbonfibre, glued with transparent epoxy. It was finished with two small pieces of cord, the same as that used on a 1920 steering wheel. In this way I kept everything original apart from 30 centimetres.’
Today the 1901 Isotta Fraschini is a London-Brighton veteran, in both senses, and just keeps on running. ‘We have done three runs and we’ve had issues on each one,’ says Lopresto, ‘ but we have always reached Brighton. I think I’m the man who has driven the car the most in its entire history. That’s something I feel very proud of, as I bear the intense responsibility of preserving this amazing, historically important piece of automotive art at its best while I’m using it.’
Three London to Brighton runs entered and completed. For a 118-year-old car that has covered more miles in the past four years than it did in the previous 114, that’s not a bad reliability record.
THANKS TO Michele Casiraghi, Mark Hyman, Fabio Verin and David Woloch Jr.