mystery moretti

By Frédéric Levaux, Moretti Registry Curator
All photos courtesy of Jay Nichols except when otherwise noted

After reading Part 1, it is easier to understand who we were dealing with; you see why a modified Cadillac wearing Moretti emblems could actually make sense.
But why would Moretti customize a Cadillac for a Nicaraguan client?

Moretti was no stranger to one-offs, after the end of their mass production as a full-fledged car manufacturer at the end of the 50s, Moretti switched to body making exclusively on Fiat chassis. But there were exceptions, the most notable one being the Maserati 3500 GT rebodied by Moretti in 1965 as pictured in Part 1. This was based on an accident-damaged customer car from Denmark that had left the Maserati factory in Modena in 1962 as a normal coupé. Instead of simply having the car repaired, the owner at the time decided to have an independent fastback body built at Moretti. Moretti rebuilt the body but the car kept its original Maserati ID plates.

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By Frédéric Levaux, Moretti Registry Curator

For more than 10 years now, I’ve been managing the Moretti registry. Having lived through the crazy adventure of restoring one of these diminutive Italian spyders from the 50s, I fell in love with this little brand, so innovative and so unloved. So much so, that over the years I’ve continued to add to the register of discoveries I’ve made through discussions, conversations, phone calls and e-mails with owners and lovers of these little cars all over the world. And indeed, as the register has grown in size, a certain reputation and visibility has now been attached to the site I manage (www.moretti-registry.com).

That is why I wasn’t all that surprised to receive a somewhat unreal message from Forest (Jay) Nichols, an American cattle farmer, in October 2023. Jay wrote that a Moretti, which looked very much like a Cadillac, had been seen by his son’s girlfriend deep in Nicaragua, and that he wanted to know what the vehicle was worth. [Read more…] about The Moretti Cadillac and the Man Who Almost Saved Beria