The Etceterini Files Part 5---- Chasing a Mirage: the Last Stanguellini

This is the second (or third or fourth, depending on how you count) installment in a series on ways you can lose money by going into the car business.  You may be wondering what the curvy red racer at the top of the page has to do with that dark blue executive express at the bottom. The answer would be that their chassis were built by Stanguellini in Modena, Italy. The red car is a Bialbero 1100 from 1957, with tubular chassis by Alberto Massimino (Ferrari, Maserati) while the twin-cam 4 cylinder engine was designed by Oberdan Golfieri. Franco Reggiani designed the body, which was built by Campana.  It's a rare car of course, but also one of those rare designs in which the fins seem a logical outgrowth of the aerodynamics.  

If you still can't recall Stanguellini you may have somehow missed the Formula Junior race series that the SCCA ran from '59 through '63.  Formula Junior cars ran stock 1100 cc engines; Fiat in the case of Stanguellini, which was the most popular ride in the US series until mid-engined Brits took over.  At the peak of their success, Vittorio Stanguellini's shops were building 8 to 10 Juniors a month, and Alfred Momo imported a good many of these through his New York facility, which had managed the Cunningham racing team in the 50s. The red car above is typical of those Juniors in that it looks like a scaled-down Maserati 250F; it was photographed at Laguna Seca while a whole family got involved in getting their car ready for the vintage races. 

Stanguellini also built a 750cc sports racer, and one of those won its class at Sebring in '57. Here's an example, also with those Reggiani-penned fins, but bodied by Allegretti.  The normal sized driver towering over the windscreen certainly gives a sense of scale, doesn't he? This car is from the Stanguellini museum, which is located above one of the biggest Fiat dealerships in Italy. After the Formula Junior heyday, a less successful mid-engined car, and a bunch of speed records set by the otherworldly Moto Guzzi-engined '63 Colibri spaceship below, it seemed that Stanguellini's car building days were over, and the shop settled down to servicing Fiats and rebuilding old racers...

But at the beginning of the 1970s, developer Peter Kalikow wanted to enter the car business, so he and ex-GM designer Gene Garfinkel sketched something out.  Partnering with Alfred Momo led to Vittorio Stanguellini's firm, which proposed to provide a modern tubular chassis, in this case with 4-wheel independent suspension involving specially cast aluminum uprights and 4 disc brakes.  The engine was a Chevy 350, while Lucas fuel injection, a GM Quadrajet carburetor, and Weber carbs were all tried on prototypes.  Transmissions used were the ZF 5 speed as well as the GM Hydramatic.  The transformation of the concept sketches into a fully detailed and sturdily built steel body was handled by Pietro Frua, who had built a limited run of stunning 50s Maseratis as well as the 60s Quattroporte production car.  The prototype Momo Mirage was featured on the cover of Road & Track in December 1971 and the reception at the New York Auto Show the following April seemed to justify an initial run of 25 cars.

Then things went wrong very quickly.  The dollar vs. lira exchange rate fell, and labor unrest in Italy led to a doubling of prices by both Stanguellini and Frua.  This meant that the chassis and bodywork alone would cost the Momo team around $20,000, when the original target sale price of the completed car with engine had been $12,900.  This tale of woe probably sounds a bit familiar if you read our March 14, 2016 piece on Burt Sugarman's misadventure getting the Ghia 450 SS built.  But bad economics stopped the Momo team even before they could, like Burt Sugarman, deliver dozens of money-losing GTs to happy customers.  Two Mirages have been exhibited at vintage car shows, and most estimates are that only three to six of this last Stanguellini chassis were built.

Photo credits:
Top:  '57 Stanguellini Bialbero 1100, Gooding & Company
2nd and 3rd:  '59-'60 Stanguellini Formula Junior, the author
4th:  '53 Stanguellini Bialbero 750, caradisiac.com
5th:  '63 Stanguellini Colibri streamliner, Wikipedia
6th & 7th:  '71 Momo Mirage, Wikipedia