FIAT 8V VIGNALE
Any 8V is unusually exotic by Fiat standards, and especially so when bodied by Vignale, but this is one of only two convertibles given to the world. Richard Heseltine examines its life and rebirth
A super-rare take on an exotic theme
The collective response is one of unfeigned awe. The fanfare from within the covered trailer can only be that of a V8 being awoken from its slumber. It sounds less guttural than many of its type, but burbly all the same. And then the car is backed out slowly until it is revealed in its entirety. It is spectacular, that’s for sure, as befits a coachbuilt exotic that has emerged only recently from a five-year restoration. It’s just that onlookers are openly debating the identity of the marque, and none are even close. It’s enough to give any car low self-esteem. But therein lies the appeal of the Fiat 8V. This most proletarian of marques has produced several landmark classics; cars beloved the world over. It’s just that it doesn’t ‘do’ exotica. Well, not often. When it does, the results are special, but even then there’s a pecking order. The Otto Vu in any of its many flavours is a thing of wonder, but one clothed by Alfredo Vignale is something else entirely. One of only two 8Vs ever built in open form, it’s two parts roadster, one part flying saucer, and wholly impressive.
By Fiat’s standards, the 8V barely registered as a blip on the radar. It certainly didn’t return a profit, but that wasn’t the point of the exercise. In latter-day parlance, this heavenly Gran Turismo was a ‘halo product’, the reflective glow from which radiated over lesser models. It was, after all, the Turin giant’s first – and to date last – V8-engined production car. That said, ‘production’ in this instance is a relative term, given that only 114 were constructed.
This intriguing coupé was also a testbed, an exercise in allowing engineers the space to be creative. Chief among their number was Dante Giacosa. Fiat had first proposed a V8 model – a flagship saloon – in the late 1940s. Giacosa recalled in My 40 Years of Design at Fiat: ‘The first test of the 104-8V engine led to a complete redesign of the cylinder heads and distribution control in order to increase power. Following good results, it was decided to build a chassis derived directly from the 1400 [saloon car] by simply increasing the wheelbase to 2850mm… The car was too big and heavy for an engine of just two-litres, albeit with eight cylinders. It aroused little interest and was judged unsuitable for production.’
There was, however, the trifling matter of what to do with all the left-over V8s. It was at this juncture that thoughts turned to creating something that bit more exotic. Unveiled at the 1952 Geneva motor show, the 8V caused a furore. It was one of few new cars launched at the season-opener, the remarkable bit being that it caught everyone by surprise.
There had been no pre-event hype nor backchannel leaks to the media. Road & Track labelled it ‘the biggest surprise of the year’, while The Motor opined: ‘[The 8V] is the last thing that had been expected from Italy’s largest car factory. It was a truly streamlined two-seater saloon.’
The car’s pushrod V8 was an over-square, short-stroke 70º unit fed by a pair of twin-choke Webers. If Fiat’s PR literature was to be believed, this all-alloy gem produced 105bhp at 5600rpm plus a corresponding 108lb ft of torque at 3600rpm. Power was transmitted to the rear wheels via a four-speed gearbox with synchro on second, third and top. It was described in period as being of semi-unitary construction – the separate steel chassis, complete with tubular side-members, was welded to the body – and its suspension followed the basic layout of the humdrum Mille
Cento saloon, with wishbones and coils at either end. Clothing the ensemble was a body penned largely inhouse by Fabio Lucio Rapi, a once-prolific designer whose resumé included the Fiat Turbina and assorted Zagatobodied ‘etceterini’. Though it was graceful in profile, the frontal aspect was altogether fussier – thankfully the ghastly Art Deco-style grille applied to the show car didn’t appear on the production version. Gordon Wilkins of The Autocar reported after testing a lightly tweaked example destined for the Mille Miglia: ‘Handling and road behaviour leave an impression of a thoroughbred with stability, liveliness and immense power. The steering is high-geared, and the car goes into a four-wheel drift with all tyres squealing and the throttle wide open in a way that the expert driver will find greatly reassuring.’
Not that Fiat rested on its laurels. A restyle was initiated after 34 cars had been made, the most obvious divergence being the new quad-headlight arrangement. Predictably, in addition to those cars bodied by Fiat’s Carrozzerie Speciali division, outside coachbuilders were also drawn to the Fiat, with Zagato’s offerings being the best-known, all bar one being built in fixed-head form. The Milanese concern went so far as to acquire several left-over 8Vs from Fiat in 1955 and carried on crafting cars to the end of the decade. They were left-over because the 8V had been quietly dropped from Fiat’s line-up a year earlier.
This was always going to be the case given that even the regular production model proved laborious to build (chassis fabrication and assembly of key components were farmed out to Siata). Then there was the small matter of the list price, which was close on three million lire. This placed it in rarefied company, especially if a customer went to the additional expense of employing an outside coachbuilder. ‘Our’ car is one of ten 8Vs bodied by Alfredo Vignale’s eponymous carrozzeria.
The son of a car painter, young Alfredo took his first tentative steps into coachbuilding legend in 1924 on being apprenticed at Ferrero & Morandi in Turin. He was 11 years old. Six years later, he caught the eye of Battista ‘Pinin’
‘IT’S TWO PARTS ROADSTER, ONE PART FLYING SAUCER, AND WHOLLY IMPRESSIVE’
Farina, under whom he would complete his training. Aged 24, he was then poached by Giovanni Farina – brother of Battista and owner of Stabilimenti Farina – to be his workshop foreman.
However, at the end of World War Two, Vignale was one of many metal-wielders looking for work and in 1947 he received an offer he couldn’t refuse. Cisitalia founder Piero Dusio had struggled to find someone who could turn aerodynamicist Giovanni Savonuzzi’s concept for the 202 SMM Aerodinamico coupé into 1:1-scale reality. Other coachbuilders baulked at the complexity, but Vignale clearly relished a challenge. On accepting the job, he was able to rent a small room in a former sawmill and branch out on his own.
Before long, his small business had become a moderately sized one, the first car built under his own name arriving in 1947. What’s more, he had by then embarked on a long and fruitful relationship with his fellow Stabilimenti Farina alumnus, Giovanni Michelotti. The two friends became regular collaborators, Michelotti producing renderings that Vignale turned into three-dimensional form. Carrozzeria Vignale’s virtuosity soon attracted the patronage of Enzo Ferrari, this anointment from automotive royalty tipping its founder’s career from ‘emerging’ to ‘arriving’. The firm would go on to dress around 150 cars from 1950 to ’54 for Il Commendatore, only to abruptly fall out of favour.
No matter, there was other exotica. According to Tony Adriaensens’ much-lauded Otto Vu: ‘The shop’s capacity was strained to the point that some of the finishing was done on the street in front of it for lack of space. Carrozzeria Vignale & Co dressed ten Otto Vu chassis, all following Giovanni
‘CARROZZERIA VIGNALE’S VIRTUOSITY SOON ATTRACTED THE PATRONAGE OF ENZO FERRARI’
Michelotti’s designs.’ And while not as ‘out there’ as, say, Ghia’s Savonuzzi-penned 8V Supersonica, Vignale’s roadster is similarly infused with transatlantic influences.
Chassis 000050 was delivered new to a Signor Leone in July 1953. However, by September of the following year it had been exported to the USA. Scroll forward several decades and it was found abandoned in Utah, and subsequently restored (though ‘turned into Frankenstein’s monster’ might be more apposite). The current owner bought the Fiat in 2015 and instructed Paul de Turris of Surrey’s DTR European Sports Cars to re-restore it.
‘We received the Otto Vu in December of that year,’ de Turris recalls. ‘It wouldn’t run properly because the engine was in a very poor state. From the limited amount of period photos of the car we could find, nothing about the interior was original. The dashboard had been replaced with a modern interpretation, complete with aftermarket gauges. All of the interior furniture had made way for 105-series Alfa Romeo items, while the seats were clearly from the 1980s. The windscreen was made of Perspex and glued into a modern surround.’
Matters took a further tumble thereafter. ‘It soon became evident that the aluminium body was not sitting happily on its chassis; the doors were touching and overhanging the rear wings when closed. Underneath, questionable welding suggested the outriggers were basically cosmetic. Once the body was removed from the chassis, it became clear that the sills had no inner strength – at all. The aluminium skin was unpicked from all the steel and most areas bore modern plastic filler, including the A-pillars.’
And thus began a 4500-hour restoration. ‘That doesn’t include the time spent researching the car and travelling to measure and photograph several 8Vs in order to get correct dimensions and finish of the outriggers, floorpans and chassis,’ de Turris counters. ‘The body was mounted on a jig and all steel was fabricated by hand to the original spec. The rear firewall, which had been cut out, was remade, and the rear end was strengthened to prevent the weight of a fully laden fuel tank from further splitting the rear wings.
‘The engine isn’t the original one, though. Our understanding is that it was missing when the car was discovered in the late 1980s. It isn’t uncommon for the engine number in an 8V not to correspond with the factorysupplied unit because they were routinely destroyed in period! We rebuilt the engine that came with the car but modified such areas as the oil pump gearing. It was also lightened and fully balanced, and we had a new camshaft made. All internals were rebuilt and a few discreet modern parts were made and installed for the sake of reliability, all being disguised within original casings.’
Inevitably, sourcing parts proved a nightmare. ‘The most difficult part of the restoration wasn’t the restoration itself,’ de Turris laughs, ‘it was finding, making or even identifying missing bits. For example, the only original gauge we could locate was the clock. The other instruments, including the main combined speedo and revcounter display, were made in-house. The missing bumpers were also fashioned by us, and those alone accounted for 160 hours. The seats were similarly made by us, as were the doorcards, chromed brass interior door furniture and so on. Every area presented a fresh challenge.’
However, good fortune occasionally rained upon Team DTR. ‘The taillights on the car when we got it were off a Chrysler. It transpired that those used originally were from a 1954 Fiat 1100TV Pinin Farina Coupé, and that was a coachbuilt car made in tiny numbers. Of course! However, we found a pair at the Auto e Moto d’Epoca show in Padua. They cost an arm and a leg, but it was another piece of the puzzle solved. The entire restoration was like that.’
The sense of pride regarding the finished item is palpable, though. ‘We have performed numerous restorations over the past 31 years on everything from pre-war Fiats to 250-series Ferraris, Abarths, Maseratis and more besides, but this was a one-off where we had only seven black-andwhite photos for reference. W hether you think it’s a beautiful car or not is a moot point, but it provokes a reaction from everyone who sees it. It is, in our opinion, one of the bestdriving cars of all those we have restored. The owner uses his cars, too, which is really pleasing. Thankfully, this one won’t be hiding in the corner under a dustsheet.’