The Swiss Museum of Transport in Lucerne is the most-visited museum in a country that is no stranger to visitors. It embraces all modes and scales of transport, so it's a good place to refresh your memories of the Convair 990 jetliner (a real one, not a model) as well as to renew your acquaintance with the Fiat Topolino. There's also one of each type of the high-performance Swiss marque Monteverdi, enough cars that we'll save some for the next post. The Museum has so many cars, trucks, motorcycles and bicycles that they they are stacked like Dinky Toys on huge metal shelves, in what looks like a burst of casual, offhand showmanship...
In the shot below, we see an NSU Ro80* (twin-rotor Wankel, front wheel drive) at the top, a Dyna Panhard Z (air-cooled flat twin, also a front-driver) in the center, and below it what looks like an Austin 7 from the early 1920s. Just visible in the second rank is a Renault R16 (1965-80) and below it, an Alfa Romeo GP car from the early 1930s.
Here's that Topolino, one of the later versions of the car that put Italy on wheels (1936-55), with a late 50s Borgward Isabella coupe leading a mid-Sixties Corvette Stingray in the space just beyond...
The Transport Museum's current exhibits focus on designs by Ercole Spada for Zagato, as well as those by Franco Scaglione* for Bertone. The car shown below is one that you may have never seen, even if you're an Alfa Romeo fan. It's one of two prototype Giulietta spiders made by Bertone to a design by Scaglione.. The frontal aspect reflects some forms and surfaces from his Alfa 2000 Sportiva of 1954. Bertone got the contract to mass-produce Scaglione's design for the Giulietta Sprint coupe also on display, but the Bertone spider remained a prototype...
Two prototypes, actually. The two-tone car shown here was built in 1956 on chassis #149500004. Note the upright, oblong tail lights which finish off the rear fenders, as on the Sprint coupe...
Bertone built an earlier version of the design in 1955, and that featured well-hidden tail lights, along with curving, creased fender tops forming gently rounded fins, a bit more like Scaglione's Arnolt Bristol from 1954...
Another Scaglione design, the Sprint Speciale below, was built in larger numbers on both Giulietta (1300cc) and Giulia (1600cc) chassis from 1957-65, and production including both types totaled 2,766. The Swiss Museum's example, though, is a rare "low nose" from very early in the production run, and features the lower hood line with simple oval air intake, lacking the traditional triangular Alfa grille which appeared on later examples. The teardrop-shaped cabin, parabolic arc-shaped windshield and backlight, and side glass curved in plan are common to all versions.
Though the car below appears to be from the mid-1960s, it's actually a 1956 Alfa Giulietta Sprint rebodied by amateur road racer Aristide Molteni with a more aerodynamic nose, then a whole new low-roof body to keep it competitive against the Alfa Sprint Zagatos. Sharp eyes comparing it with the Sprint Speciale above will note that the Molteni car apparently uses the same windshield. The exhibit catalog does not indicate whether Molteni ever designed any other cars...
Zagato bodied special Alfas during this period as well, and the museum exhibits include this 6 cylinder 2600 SZ. Unlike the four-cylinder 2000 that came before it, the 2600 SZ has an aluminum engine based loosely on the architecture of the Giulietta. Unlike the smaller Alfa Zagatos intended for racing, the body here is steel, not aluminum. The oblong headlights predicted an Eighties styling trend about a decade and a half early...
The legendary Giulia TZ (below) from 1963-67, later called the TZ-1 to differentiate it from its fiberglass-bodied successor, was bodied in aluminum on a rigid, light tubular steel frame (thus the T for Tubolare). Styling by Ercole Spada was tightly wrapped around the mechanicals and the cabin. The highest-optioned racing versions featured twin-plug cylinder heads on Alfa's classic twin-cam four. The museum's current retrospective of Spada designs includes drawings and sketches along with the finished cars.
The 1,450 pound TZ featured a special sump casting to compensate for the tilt of the 1600 engine, and the same powerful Girling disc brakes at all 4 wheels used on racing Jaguars of the era. Those lucky enough to drive one have commented on the responsive handling ("it feels alive") as well as the remarkably comfortable ride qualities.
The Giulietta 1300 Sprint Zagato that preceded the TZ was called the coda tronca because of its truncated tail. Like the later TZ, the body was in alloy, but the glassier cabin had a bit more space, and wind-down door windows unlike the removable ones on the TZ-1. The Sprint Zagato on exhibit has been left in a condition that represents a literal interpretation of the phrase "half-restored"...
The dividing line between "before" and "after" restoration runs right down the centerline of the car. These two views show the chopped tail that was unusual on series-produced cars in 1962.
The museum is currently showing an exhibit of Zagato-bodied cars designed by Ercole Spada, and there are Lancias to go with the Spada-designed Alfas. One is the immaculate Fulvia Sport Zagato shown below. The design was produced from 1965 through 1973, with narrow-angle V4 engines of 1.2, 1.3 and 1.6 liters in various states of tune. At least one source claims the first 202 cars constructed featured all-aluminum body panels, and used the smallest engine.
The Flavia Super Sport Zagato prototype shown above and below, one of two built in 1967-68, represented Spada's response to the creased, wedge-shaped cars then appearing from Giugiaro. Spada managed to include plenty of curves in the composition, in profile, plan and section. His modernist take on the traditional shield-shaped Lancia grille gives the nose more character than the simple rectangle on his Fulvia Sport, or on the various 1960s Lancias from Pininfarina or Vignale. This car, from the Lopresto collection, is the 2 liter prototype from 1968; a 1.8 liter car to the same design appeared in the previous year.
Like the Fulvia Sport Zagato, the Flavia Sport prototypes featured the horizontal crease along their flanks, here combined with a dropped window sill line and a dished-out profile for the rear hatch that hinted at the sport wagon designs that would soon emerge from other designers.
No Spada / Zagato retrospective would be complete without an Aston Martin, and the Swiss Museum's exhibit does not disappoint. Zagato produced only 19 originals of Ercole Spada's body design on the DB4-GT chassis (a shortened and lightened DB-4) from 1960-63. All featured the twin-plug cylinder head on the twin-cam Aston straight six.
Despite the American habit of calling high-performance road cars muscle cars, Spada's design for the Aston DB4 GTZ is one of the few cars that actually looks muscular. It seems that the compound curves of the alloy body have been stretched tightly over the frame and machinery. The hard-edged rectangle of the sliding side windows is a distraction, and was not a feature of all the Zagato Astons.
Nearly thirty years after building those 19 DB4-GT Zagatos, the Aston Martin factory issued another 4 Sanction II cars, and then some time later a couple of Sanction IIIs, all built on chassis leftover from the original under-subscribed run. This reflects the fact that real Aston GTZs are now valued well over a hundred times their original price. High-maintenance, lightweight road racers with fragile bodywork and scant creature comforts were a hard sell at twenty thousand dollars apiece in 1960, but they are considered art and worth millions today...
*Footnote: We had a closer look at design and engineering of the rotary-powered NSU Ro80 in "The Future in the Rearview Mirror: Tesla Model 3 vs. NSU Ro80", in the Archives for April 10, 2016. A survey of other designs by Franco Scaglione for Bertone, including the Alfa 2000 Sportiva and Arnolt Bristol, is found in "Unsung Genius Franco Scaglione—The Arc of Success", posted December 20, 2017. Another example of a literally half-restored car is on display in the post for April 28, 2019, entitled "Roadside Attraction—Sarasota Classic Car Museum." The Spada-designed cars for the Swiss Museum of Transport exhibit were lent by the Lopresto Collection.
Photo Credits: All photos were supplied by George Havelka, with the exception of the rear view of the 1956 Alfa Bertone Spider prototype and the black and white shot of the 1955 Bertone Spider prototype, which are from carstyling.ru.
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