FORD MUSTANG BY ZAGATO
Ford’s Mustang was a smash hit in America, less so elsewhere – but one Italian wanted something a bit more personal
Mass-produced 1960s sports car made unique
America went nuts when Ford launched the Mustang in 1964. During its first 12 months on sale it shattered every sales forecast, rocketing from an estimate of 100,000 to beyond 400,000. That’s even more incredible when you consider that the two men behind it, project manager Lee Iacocca and engineer Donald N Frey, took the car from idea to fruition in 18 months. With American roads being invaded by agile, compact sport cars from Europe, Iacocca decided that the time was right for a major American manufacturer to enter the market. The Mustang was small by the country’s standards, it looked sexy and sporting, and was powerful thanks to its 4.7-litre V8 – though part of the marketing genius was in offering many options, from colour and trim to a range of engines, including a budgetconscious straight-six. It kicked off – and lent its name to – the American ‘pony car’ movement, defining a new class of car.
But while success in America was immediate, with both the ‘notchback’ Coupe and the Fastback body, it was quite different in Europe, where sales never really took off. It fared best in Northern Europe, countries such as Sweden and Germany. But in Italy? No. Even in its cheapest form it was a step too far for the average Italian customer, most of whom bought tiny two-cylinder Fiat 500s. Only movie stars and rich industrialists could dream much bigger.
Back in the late 1960s, for those who did, there was an incredible homegrown array to choose from, not only in terms of marques and mechanicals but styling, too, as so many coachbuilders were still operating. Car lovers could order a bespoke sports car to suit their tastes perfectly. Already equipped with an American V8 engine was the Iso Rivolta, but the Mustang had to fight the Alfa Romeo Giulia GT and the new Duetto spider as well. Closer in price were the Fiat Dino, with its Maranello-designed V6 and, as a more refined option, the Lancia Flaminia Coupé – the latter better still when bodied by Zagato. For those who wanted something really exotic, there was the Jaguar E-type or Porsche 911.
But the idea of having a car with a different body than standard, or buying a car that was manufactured in a small series by a coachbuilder under the patronage of the manufacturer who’d provided the rolling chassis, was still quite common, at least for Italian marques. Today, that era is regarded as one of the most beautiful in Italian post-war car manufacturing. Yet the Mustang’s commercial success at home meant that Ford wasn’t interested in developing a special version for foreign markets, bar such necessary changes as European rear light clusters and an odometer in kilometres. Even the coolant and the oil pressure gauges were marked simply from ‘L[ow]’ to ‘H[igh]’.
The idea of having Mustangs modified by coachbuilders was far from the management minds at Ford, even though the company was shortly
(as soon as 1973) to become the owner of two Italian coachbuilding institutions in Carrozzeria Ghia and Vignale.
Given the above, it is hard to imagine the involvement of an Italian coachbuilder with a first-generation Mustang – but that is to discount the efforts of Silvio Bucco. Bucco came from an important family in Pescara, in the central region of Abruzzo, and was an entrepreneur in the road-paving and asphalt business. He decided to fulfil one of his dreams and bought a new Ford Mustang V8 Fastback in Wimbledon White with black vinyl trim, air conditioning and four-speed manual transmission. Chassis 7T02A201813 was manufactured on 21 February 1967 in the Metuchen, New Jersey, plant.
Bucco, who had graduated from Milan University, was the manager of several companies and sent one of his employees to the Turin Motor Show in October 1966, to report back on the new Ford Mustang and come back armed with a sales brochure. Using the brochure to configure the car, he put in his order with the official Ford importer for Italy – and was already planning to have it personalised by a coachbuilder. His original idea was to commission Pininfarina in Turin, but his thengirlfriend (the widow of a Pirelli manager, and from Milan) put him in contact with Carrozzeria Zagato, in Terrazzano di Rho, a few miles north-west of the city.
Zagato, then managed by founder Ugo’s sons Gianni and Elio, was enjoying something of a boom period, involved in the production of several models, many used for racing, including the now-legendary Alfa Romeo TZ. The coachbuilder was considered younger in style and more dynamic as a brand than its Turin counterparts and, in 1968, under the logo Zagato Elaborazione, prepared the Mustang with a few significant modifications.
Gone were the round headlights, replaced by rectangular Carello units, with the nose adapted to fit them, and a large air intake was opened up on the bonnet. The front bumper was modified to receive small, chromed indicators in pure Alfa Romeo GT style, plus the mandatory side repeaters for Italian traffic laws. The shape of the front grille stayed as on the original but, with the bonnet lowered between the wings, the upper part was covered by the bonnet’s lip. Small silver-and-black
Zagato Elaborazione logos were fitted low down on both front wings, just ahead of the wheelarches. The car was resprayed in Highland Green, like a certain Frank Bullitt’s, and, inside, the black vinyl front seats were partially retrimmed with white side bolsters and backrests.
Bucco happily drove his car from Pescara to Milan when visiting his girlfriend, though he thought it was too precious to be used on a daily basis. In 15 years, the well-cared-for one-off covered a mere 46,000 kilometres (29,000 miles). Then, early in 1983, furious at the increasing price of fuel, Bucco returned the car’s PE 58841 numberplates in order to avoid paying road tax, and parked the car in one of his company’s warehouses, where the only care it received was dry storage and an employee to start the engine once in a while. It would be another 12 years before the Mustang saw the sun again.
‘My father Donato bought the car in 1995,’ remembers current owner Fabio di Pasquale. ‘He presented it to me on my following birthday, in March 1996, when I turned 22. He knew the late Mr Bucco, as my family is in a similar business, and he’d known about the Mustang ever since he saw it a long time ago in one of Mr Bucco’s warehouses. The guy in charge of it didn’t know what to do, as it seemed impossible to reregister the car, and the general idea was to scrap it. My father stepped in to ask about it and a deal was struck. When it arrived home, it was still wearing its “original non-original” green paint, but in carrying out research, without having any confirmation about the Zagato part of the story, when the moment came to fix it, we played safe and resprayed the car in the original – 1619A code – white.
‘In March 1997, after a tonne of paperwork, I had the car re-registered for road use on a new numberplate. During this first series of works we kept the original interior, and found confirmation of the engine’s and several major components’ originality, and we discovered that the car was quite sound, without any rust. For the following 20 years, I enjoyed my white Mustang, locally and for long journeys on classic car events.’
‘The car was resprayed in Highland Green, just like a certain Frank Bullitt’s’
Eventually it was time for a full restoration. ‘In 2017, I noticed that the 20-year-old paint was showing its age, and had it resprayed – for the second time, in white. Then a problem arose with my decision to have the car registered as an historic vehicle. To do so, I was asked to provide documentation proving the origin of the transformation of my car, something I knew only from what my father was told when he bought it. Then I tracked down Paolo Di Taranto, in charge of marketing and heritage in Zagato, a guy with a deep passion for classic cars, and asked him for help with the origin of my car and its colour. Three days later, he sent me confirmation of what I knew about the car and two old pictures, one showing my car and another clearly showing a dark-coloured Shelby 350 GT Zagato, easily the same dark green we received our car in.
‘It was during this research that yet more history was uncovered. Carrozzeria Zagato, around the same time, had built the Shelby 350 GT (chassis no. 6S761), also in green, with the hope of a small manufacturing run, but didn’t develop it any further. That 350 GT is now believed to be in Switzerland, after being rescued from a scrapyard. Today my Mustang Zagato is used for classic car events. For me it is an important legacy, not only because of the connection with my father, but because it made me discover my passion for classic cars.
‘Together we drove to and around Greece, Sicily and so on, and it always proved very reliable. Now I’m the man who has driven it the most, and it is showing just above 92,000 kilometres. I love the fact that, if you are not an expert, the car doesn’t look like a one-off but like a normal Mustang. Yet I dream, one day, of showing her in an American Mustang meeting. There the Mustang is a legend, but this one isn’t known about.’
We’re sure Lee Iacocca would have loved that idea.
‘If you are not an expert, the car doesn’t look like a one-off but like a normal Mustang’