The term "etceterini" usually refers to small, often Fiat-based, sports and race cars built in Italy in the first quarter century or so after WWII. Etceterini were so named because they were not from any of Italy's fabled suppliers of fleet machines, such as Alfa Romeo, Lancia, or Maserati. And they were certainly not from the one postwar upstart which had already achieved universal fame by the early 50s: Ferrari. But I'd argue that one almost-forgotten car straddles the categories of etceterini and Ferrari: the ASA.
While getting his own 250GT into series production in the late 1950s, Enzo Ferrari explored the idea of getting a less expensive baby Ferrari into production. Design proposals from his engineering staff centered on an inline, single overhead cam engine which was, in essence, 4 cylinders from the 3 liter V12 which powered Ferrari's 250. The young Giorgetto Giugiaro, new on the job at Bertone, sketched a clean fastback coupe to clothe the tubular chassis of the little (1,032 cc) car. The divided grille echoed the twin-nostril motif which had just appeared on Ferrari's Formula One racers. Production of the car was licensed to the De Nora industrial concern, and began in 1962.
The hope was the ASA would, at around $6,000, offer the mystique of a Ferrari at half the price. But cars like the Fiat Abarth 1000 and Alfa Romeo Giulietta offered equal or better performance for about two-thirds the cost. De Nora's production capacity was too limited to ratchet up volume enough to offer a more competitive price. Total production over a period of five years amounted to something like 125 units. But in an attempt to garner the publicity that comes with racing success, Giotto Bizzarrini (father of Ferrari's GTO) designed a sleek competition coupe, which was built in tiny numbers...
Near the end, there was also an update on the idea of a dual purpose GT for touring or occasional race use. This was the Roll Bar Spider, offered in RB 411 (4 cylinder, 1100 cc) and also RB 613 (6 cylinder, 1300 cc) versions. The bodywork presaged that of other cars with built-in roll bars (Corvette, notably) and it was a tidy package, but it came too late to save ASA. The 6 cylinder ASA engine is a real rarity, as it was essentially one bank of a Ferrari V12. It makes one wonder if it would have had greater success it they had made a lateral rather than longitudinal slice, for a compact V6. But that's a story for another chapter…
Photo credits:
Top: ASA 1000 GT / Wikimedia
2nd from top: ASA 1000 Berlinetta Competizione / Autodrome Paris
Bottom 2: ASA RB 613 Spider / ASA Automobili
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