From the Archives, February 2020
Story by staff, and color photos by Gianni Petta
Gianni Petta, known for his wonderful Targa Florio dioramas, sent along a series of photos of a variety of Siatas, all taken in Italy, at the Targa Florio or the Mille Miglia vintage avents in the past few years. This prompted us to recall a very thorough road test of the Siata Gran Sport conducted by a rare early sports car magazine, which we quote from below. And why was it called a Gran Sport and Daina at the same time?
The Siata Daina, the early 1950s version, was based on the Fiat 1400. Many were imported to the U.S. and also called Gran Sports. Of interest was the Siata’s name, Daina, often misspelled as Diana, of course. Or was it, on some models, Diana? And what did it stand for? There seems to be no Italian translation for the word Daina. Gianni Petta thinks it was just a name that came up for no particular reason. In his landmark book on the Otto Vu, Tony Adriaensens doesn’t clarify the nomenclature either. Some have offered that it meant gazelle or deer. We just don’t know. Can readers help?
We found a revealing road test of the 1400 Gran Sport in the May 1952 issue of Auto Speed and Sport, a Petersen publication edited by Walt Woron. John Edgar had recently purchased a Gran Sport and when it was road tested by Dick Van Osten, it had about 1000 miles on the odometer. It was raining and they had the rare opportunity to erect the canvas top, which they were impressed to find that it actually protected the occupants from the elements, although it took “a lot of arms to erect it in any short span of time.”
The relatively stock (aside from two downdraft Webers on a Siata manifold) Fiat 1395cc engine allowed the Siata to cruise all day at 70-80 mph and they recorded a top speed of 89 mph with no roughness even at 6000 rpm. Not bad for an under 1500 cc engine back then or even today. They also noted that while the Fiat four speed gearbox came with a steering column shift, Siata changed it to a floor shift arrangement which worked pretty well. Acceleration figures were 0-30 in 4.85 seconds, 0-60 in 19.86, and 0-80 in 30.84 seconds.
Overall length was 152 inches, wheelbase 94 inches, with a weight of 2000 lbs. Surprisingly, they stated that the Stabilimenti Farina body was steel, not aluminum. As Jonathan Sharp noted in his report from Retromobile, apparently Farina only made two Dainas with aluminum body (read report). As with the stock Fiat, the front suspension was independent double wishbones with coils and the rear was a well-located standard axle with coils springs. A five speed Siata gearbox was optional and so were Borrani wire wheels.
“There were very few negative qualities that I could find in the Siata,” wrote Ostend with perhaps a hint of irony. It needed padding for the top bows, undercoating for the body to eliminate drumming, the shift lever needed relocating, and the instrument faces were poorly designed. The speedometer was exactly ten mph fast at all readings. And the cost? About $4000. That would be roughly $40,000 in today’s depreciated dollars.
Below are a few more Siatas of various types, found in Italian events in recent years, courtesy of Gianni Petta of Sicily.
More on Siata from the pages of VeloceToday
Richard Neff says
Wonderful article !! I owned Siata GS 1400 # 216. When I bought it it had a “back yard job” installed Ford 302 V8. Too far modified to return to original specifications I restored it with the same V8. Sold the car around 2000 and I believe it resides in Europe.
Best regards,
Richard Neff
neffr554@gmail.com
Richard Neff says
Richard Neff chiming in again… I had heard that my 1952 Farina bodied 1400 Gran Sport had been converted back to Fiat 1400 specs to qualify and run in the Mille Miglia sometime in the past 15 years or so can anyone verify this for me??
Mark Guinther says
John de Boer was quite active in racing various Siata cars at Laguna Seca in the 1980s & 90s and published at least 5 editions of “The Registry of Italian Oddities” aka “The Etceterini Register”, a font of interesting information! Available ???