Mystery Car Unraveled

Sometimes, it’s still fun….

Today we have almost dozens of books about rare Italian cars; multiple Internet sources which leave no digit unmolested, no photo left unseen; dozens of seasoned veterans with years of experience identifying, finding, buying, and selling rare Italian cars, and then wonderful resources for information such as the REVS and IMRRC.
All of this means that there are few true mystery cars left out there – the wealth of resources has taken much of the fun away from finding a photo of a car one can’t identify.

Still, once in a while one comes up that we find it hard to figure. When this happens, we put the image up on VeloceToday and we are sure to find the right answer. Or so we hope.

This particular mystery car was part of a set of negatives sent to us by long time enthusiast and VeloceToday reader Jerry Lehrer. He should do something with, but what? (send it to us, of course!). He couldn’t remember offhand exactly when the photos were taken, and the name of the car, if there was any, had long escaped him.

At first glance it appeared to be a Cisitalia, but a side view with very curvaceous fenders told us otherwise. It rang bells but we were pretty much at a loss as to the chassis (Fiat?) or the coachbuilder (Motto) or the constructor (Ermini?). All Jerry could recall is that it was part of a New Jersey car show, which also presented the new Austin Healey 100. That would make it 1952, and the car, whatever it was, was most likely brought into the U.S. by Tony Pompeo. We checked the usual sources but came up empty handed, a task made more difficult because we had no chassis, make or coachbuilder confirmation, and nothing on the car insofar as any badge or script.

Many readers guessed Cisitalia, a good shot. But look at those headlights.

That left putting an image up on VT, though that is always the court of last resort; it means we’ve failed in our task and must resort to asking the real experts out there.

Apart from the many who also thought Cisitalia, a reply came in from a real expert, Jim Sitz, who is another long time VeloceToday reader and supporter. Jim is such a walking encyclopedia of automotive facts, he served as the main fact checker for R&T, Forza, AQ and many others; in fact he fact checked this author’s articles for both Forza and R&T years ago. When they said “Sitz will read the MS”, that meant heads up and get your act together!

While Jim has given up his own archives and generously gave all of his own photos to the IMRRC, they guy still has a remarkable memory. He wrote “Your mystery car might be a FIAT by Castagna. I saw it at International Motors in 1949 and it was also in the June 1948 Road & Track. It was in Italy before coming over to Roger Barlow’s Sunset Blvd Agency.” He said his collection of R&Ts were in storage but fortunately we have a set here in the VeloceToday office. Could Jim really have remembered this, so long ago?

Well, yes and no.

Into the analog vaults we went to retrieve the June 1948 issue of Road & Track. And here is what we found and Jim recalled:

Close, but could this be our mystery car? Again, note the headlight surrounds.

Fiat 1100 Castagna, is all the caption read in R&T.

But could it be the same car? Six years -1948 to 1952 – separated the photos, and though there are many differences between the two cars, the overall lines and in particular, those headlight bezels are similar. Any number of modifications and changes could have been made to the car in the course of those four years resulting in the differences in grilles, rear end and wheels.

Rear veiw brought out more differences between the R&T car and mystery car. But the same buck, maybe?

And what of Castagna? Could this really be coachwork by the elegant but often heavy handed Italian coachbuilder? Back to the books. Since 1915 when Ercole Castagna inherited the company from his father Carlo, the firm was noted for very conservative, luxurious bodies on Alfa RLs, Mercedes, Lancias and the big Fiats. Ercole and his son Carlo struggled to keep the firm alive, but they closed the doors in 1954. But not before designing one of the most unique Cisitalia 202 spiders ever. According to Angela Cherret in an article for Automobile Quarterly (V14 No-1), Castagna hired Giuseppe Seregni away from Touring to help update their design department; the Cisitalia has definite Touring influences.

Castagna's last stand, a totally different animal than the R&T car. But you never know...Photo by Alessandro Gerelli.

But this car, actually built in 1949, shows no resemblance at all to our mystery car – nothing visually can confirm or deny whether or not Castagna was the responsible party. Nothing in our meager information on Castagna helped either.

But obviously Jim was onto something. It was R&T who quoted Castagna; perhaps that was incorrect. Despite the rather large tires and wheels of the car in the Lehrer photo (indicated it might be based on a car larger or more powerful than the Fiat 1100), odds are that it was indeed a Fiat and that it was designed and built as a racecar, not a street, production or even show car.

And that means Etceterini. And that meant a trip through the thousands of photos in La “Sport” e i suoi Artigiani (1937-1965), that remarkable compendium of the rarest of Italian sports racers.

La Sport is in general organized by the builder or constructor, in alphabetical order. It includes large firms such as Abarth and tiny, one off shops like Fiordelisi and those in-between like Stanguellini. A coachbuilder like Motto or Colli could also be a constructor. Or a car could feature a Motto body with a Fiat chassis and a Volpini engine and be called something else again.

Fortunately, strolling through La Sport is always a pleasure and a learning experience. Given enough time and patience, one never knows what one might find:

Giovanni Bracco at the Circuito delle Cascine in 1947 in our mystery car. But the car has suffered some damage to the front… photo from La Sport e i suoi Artigiani (1937-1965).

So, was this it, for sure? And if so, what was it anyway? The caption didn’t say, but it was under the Colli chapter. Seems that Colli was the combination of Rinaldo Tinarelli, Arnaldo Roselli, and Paolo Volpini. And built for one Antonio Bottazzi in 1947 using a Fiat 1100 based Roselli hemispherical head, tubular chassis and more or less, it was a Volpini, though it was referred to as the Fiat Roselli Colli.

Moving on to Volpini, we found more photos:

Almost a side view of the Fiat Roselli Colli, looking much like our mystery car. From 'La Sport'.

Tying it all in was another photo of Rinaldo Tinarelli with his dog, and in the background the Fiat Roselli as built for Bottazzi. But where and how did race driver supremo Bracco come in? That we don’t know for sure, although both Bracco and Biondetti had close ties with Colli, Volpini and Roselli, have them earlier modify a Fiat 1100 to accept a Maserati 6CM engine. Seems that we had found the car after all. Fun is where you find it.

Tinarelli with his dog and the Fiat Roselli Colli. Comparing the grille, vents and headlight bezels, we seem to be in for a match. Readers? Photo from La Sport

But wait, there is more.
A. What is it’s relation to the R&T car seen by Jim Sitz?
B. When and why did the Fiat Roselli come to the US?
C. Where is it today?