The Italian Line: Ghia Part 2 ——From Custom to Corporate

We resume our review of Ghia's landmark cars with the prototype 2nd generation Dual-Ghia* first exhibited in 1960. Virgil Exner's design was translated by Sergio Sartorelli into a low, sleek semi-fastback coupe.  Frontal treatment echoed the first generation... 

…while the rear, with its horizontal ledge and scooped upper lights, had some themes that would appear on Plymouth and Dodge production cars from 1960 and '61.  The canted wheel cutouts would show up on some Plymouths and Dodges as well.  Prices  were double that of the first generation, and this, along with the retirement of  Dual Motors' Gene Casaroll, limited sales of the renamed, Ghia-built L6.4 to just 26 units.  

"Production" versions had a roofline roughly 1" higher than this prototype.  Customers may have been few, but they were satisfied with the quality of Ghia's efforts.  

Sergio Sartorelli deployed some of the same themes on his design for Fiat's 2300 and 2300S GT coupes, which went into production in 1961, the same year as the L6.4.  These included the glassy greenhouse with wraparound backlight, the vented front fenders, and the horizontal ledge wrapping around the deck...

It was a handsome, well-mannered car, and it outsold the Ghia L6.4 by a factor of several hundred.  This meant that produciton of bodies had to be outsourced to OSI, Ghia's mass-production offshoot.

Sartorelli also designed the second generation Type 34 Karmann Ghia for Ghia, and this was produced by Karmann starting in 1962.  Like many European cars of the period, the Type 34 K-G showed some Corvair influence in that horizontal ledge encircling the body, and Sartorelli's move of wrapping the ledge around the inboard lights at the front is a somewhat unconvincing detour...

His design for a one-off 1962 Maserati 5000GT Ghia built for Sr. Innocenti, of motor scooter and small car fame, was more convincing in form and detail.  The low, undecorated form and glassy roof may provide the best proportions on any of these rare cars.

The ovoid wheel arches may have inspired those on the 1964 Pontiac GTO.

Sartorell's design for the Fiat 1500 GT Ghia fastback rappeared in 1962, and went into production the following year. The use of the chromed grille surround as a front bumper was simple and effective.  Over 800 copies left the factory...

Sartorelli's design for a successor to the Fiat 2300S remained a one or two-off, as Fiat elected to follow up their 2300S with the Fiat Dino.  But Hollywood producer Burt Sugarman fell in love with the car, and commissioned Ghia to build a convertible version of Sartorelli's Ghia 230S fastback, only with a Chrysler 273 V8 plunked into the Fiat chassis. Giorgetto Giugiaro took over as Ghia design chief during 1965, and arrived in time to supervise the conversion, designing an optional hardtop. The gently curved lower body of the resulting Ghia 450SS*, with its subtly creased flanks, retained Sartorelli's lines...

The rear bumper wraps up around the flat tail panel just as on the Fiat 1500 GT.  Owing to financial and production woes, fewer than 60 of these cars made it to customers from 1966 to 1967...

The same could be said of the De Tomaso Vallelunga*, that car builder's first effort at a production car. Three alloy-bodied prototypes were made in 1964 at Fissore before production of the design was moved to Ghia's shops in 1965. While the designer was not credited, the proportions of the mid-engined, Ford inline four-powered coupe echo those of the Fissore-bodied Elva-BMW GT160 from the same period; it was designed in-house by Trevor Fiore. That car had the same low beltline and glassy fastback..

But the Elva BMW GT lacked the curved side glass and sheer flanks, uninterruped by creases or vents, of the Vallelunga.  One eventual owner of a Vallelunga, Tom Matano, admired its clean form so much he said it inspired some of his thoughts on his design for the first Mazda Miata...

In November 1966 at the Turin Auto Show, Ghia wowed the crowds with the Maserati Ghibli.  Named after a hot North African wind, it followed the Mistral and fit Maserati's slogan, "A Car Like the Wind."  Giorgetto Giugiaro's design substituted sharply defined contours and plane changes and deftly controlled proportions for surface decoration.  It sent the pattern for future front-engined GT cars, foreshadowed the trend to more angular forms, and went into production by spring of 1967.

By the time I saw one at the Paris Auto Salon in October 1970, the Ghibli was a familiar sight to showgoers, but it still looked like a fresh idea to me...

At the rear as well as front, sharp delineation of surface edges and incised lines continue, with a recessed panel surrounding the gas filler reducing the blockiness of the rear quarter.  The front edge of the C-pillar aligns roughly with the wheel center.  Giugiaro's handling of proportions and form imparts a sense of motion throughout...

Real motion was provided by a 4-cam V8 with alloy block, in either 4.7 or 4.9 liter sizes.  A dry sump was used in order to allow a low hood line. In 1969 a Ghibli Spyder was added to the line, sometimes equipped with an optional hardtop. The wire wheels shown on our example were almost an anachronism when they appeared as an option on the Ghibli, and were less effective visually and in handling dynamic loads than the alloy wheels shown on our other examples.  The Ghibii had at least 330 hp to transmit to the road, and it was not a lightweight car...

The De Tomaso Mangusta was also V8-powered, but the Ford engine was mid-mounted behind the cabin.  Giugiaro was also the author of this design, which made its debut at the same Turin show as the Ghibli, doubtless leaving onlookers bewildered as to what might be the most stunning new car there.  

Silver, Giugiaro's favorite show car color, showed off the creased, tightly contoured lines better than red.  Giugiaro emphasized the rear wheels and sloped the windshield steeply to impart a relentlessly purposeful form.

The butterfly engine lids dictated twin outer backlights; inside, a vertical backlight separated the passenger cabin from the engine, while deeply recessed vents in the lids echoed those aft of the side windows.  Note how the horizontal crease dividing the upper and lower flanks is roughly tangent to the wheel tops.  Rear tires were larger than fronts, and the design benefitted from the designer's disinclination to add anything like practical bumpers at the rear...

…or any bumpers at the front, where the simple, forward-canted air intake opening tightly surrounded 4 round headlights that were 2 oblong units in Giugiaro's original sketch for rival maker Iso.  For Iso the car was a lost opportunity, but it put De Tomaso on the map as a car maker.  It went into production in autumn of 1967, the year De Tomaso rescued Ghia from a brief ownership by dilettante ex-dictator Ramfis Trujillo.  Just over 400 Mangustas would be made before a bigger project consumed De Tomaso's, and Ghia's, attention.

That bigger project was not this Ghia-bodied Oldsmobile Thor, though it was a sign of the increasing interest that big car companies beyond Chrysler and VW were taking in Ghia.  The Thor, which appeared in 1967, was commissioned by GM Styling Chief Bill Mitchell.  Giugiaro draped a low, glassy form over the Toronado mechanicals, and the result upstaged the GM original which had appeared the previous year.  GM failed to follow Ghia's lead, however, and their own revisions to the original Toronado spoiled its freshness after 1967.

Corporate brass at Ford were not as shy in putting a Ghia design into serious production. The Mangusta had attracted their attention, and Lee Iacocca approached De Tomaso about a more practical production version of the Mangusta idea.  Ford  bought Ghia in 1970 and Giugiaro had left Ghia to start his own firm, so new chief designer Tom Tjaarda*, recently arrived from Pininfarina, handled design chores. The new Pantera, above, was built at Vignale, also owned by Ford: it overlapped the end of Mangusta production and went on sale in the US in the spring of 1971.  Over 5,600 were built during its US run, which ended in 1974.

Tjaarda also proposed a front-engined Ford V8-powered coupe which could have provided a lower-cost alternative to Maserati's Ghibli, but Ford was preoccupied with the Pantera, and Iso had changed from GM to Ford as an engine supplier for its own front-engined GTs, so the Zonda shown above remained a one-off.

So did the intriguing 1981 AC-Ghia*, based on the mid-engined 3000ME chassis with its trnsverse-mounted Ford V6. The compact, distintively rounded wedge form of the Ghia provided the ME chassis something the AC original lacked: a coherent visual identity.  It was one of two 3000ME chassis provided to Ghia in a project hatched by Bob Lutz and Karl Ludvigsen. The other chassis had its wheelbase lengthened by 11 inches and became the Lincoln Quicksilver, shown below. Nobody had ever seen a Lincoln like this one, a mid-engined luxury sedan with a smooth, low form that seemed more Citroen than Ford.  Like the AC-Ghia, it was a drivable, fully-functioning car, not just a show exercise.  After touring the show circuit, both AC-based prototypes were sadly forgotten.

After the Ford takeover, the name Ghia was applied for awhile to denote the top trim level on a number of relatively uninspired Ford products that had no Ghia design involvement.  There were some inspired concept cars, however, and one of these was the stunning 1992 Ghia Ford Focus* designed by Taru Lahti at Ghia, and built there as a fully-functioning car on an all-wheel-drive Escort RS Cosworth chassis. Organic forms were echoed in details that were almost eerily reminiscent of deep-sea monsters, a perfect place to conclude our study of Ghia.  Have a safe and happy Halloween (yet another reason to wear a mask) and remember that it's too late to mail in your vote, so please vote in person or use a ballot box by Tuesday, November 3rd...

*Footnote:  For a brief history of Ghia-bodied cars from the late Forties through the Fifties, see our previous chapter, "The Italian Line: Ghia Part 1—International Style", posted on 10-22-20. Dual-Ghia history is reviewed in that post as well as one from August 29, 2015: "What Defines a Production Car, and Why Would Anybody Pay $3 Million for One?"  The unlikely saga of the Ghia 450SS was told here in "Foreshadowing Fiat Chrysler: Ghia 450SS", on 3-14-16. De Tomaso's Vallelunga is examined in more mechanical and visual detail in "Hillsborough Concours Part 1", in our archives for 7-26-18. Tom Tjaarda's work for Ghia is further explored in "Architect-Designed Cars Part 4:  Tom Tjaarda—Life Before and After the Pantera", posted 4-30-20.  The AC 3000ME appears in "AC Part 4: Shelby's Cobra Was a Hard Act to Follow", posted on 8-20-17.  And Ghia's Ford Focus concept car is examined in more detail in "Nineties Concept Cars Part 1", from 12-30-18.

Color Photo Credits:  
Maserati Ghibli at Paris Auto Show:  Ronald Budde

All other color photos are by the author.

Monochrome Photo Credits:   

Karmann Ghia Type 34 front / side:  classics.honestjohn.co.uk

Karmann Ghia Type 34 side / rear:  Volkswagen AG

Fiat 1500GT front / side:  hobbydb.com

Maserati Ghibli Spider:  maseratiusa.com

Lincoln Quicksilver:  Ford Motor Company

All other monochrome images are from Carrozzeria Ghia.