The Etceterini Files Part 26: Siva Sirio——Italian Style, Mid-Mounted Ford Power, Oblivion Anyway

Are these ladies running toward the Siva Sirio because they need to get somwhere in a hurry, or because they've never seen one before?  If this example didn't belong to one of them, there's a good chance they hadn't seen one, because only a handful of Sirios were built...

If, on the other hand, our friends were in a rush to get somewhere, the Sirio just might have done the job. Achille Candido, a car dealer in Southern Italy, hatched the idea of a modern sports car using Ford components; his Siva concern (Society Italiana Vendita Automobili) already offered Ford products. The engine was the 60-degree German Ford V6 that had appeared earlier in the OSI-Ford 20M TS*, another Italian GT from this period.  But unlike the front-engined, rear-drive OSI-Ford, the Sirio is mid-engined, with the V6 making up to 130 hp sitting right behind the cabin ahead of the 4-speed gearbox.  This had production advantages in that the power unit from the front-drive Taunus production car could simply be moved to the rear, much as Ford had done in its V4, mid-engined Mustang I* prototype five years earlier. Virgilio Conrero* laid out the tubular steel chassis design with 4-wheel independent suspension. Giovanni Michelotti's original sketch for the Siva showed a long tapered snout with hidden headlights, with straight fender and window sill lines flanking the thick B-pillar...

By the time Siva produced 3 prototypes for the 1967 Turin Show, Candido had commissioned a redesign from Stile Italia. The bodies were built by Carbondio in Turin, and featured recessed headlights with bubble covers, fenders dipping in a smooth curve below the window sills, a subtle crease along the flanks connecting the wheel centers, and an abrupt chop with recessed panel at the tail.  The thick B-pillar roll bar remained from the MIchelotti design...

The Sirio, named for the brightest star in the night sky, turned out to have been born under a bad sign.  Profit margins for a mid-priced sports car left less room for miscalculation than in the stratospheric price range occupied by makers of Italy's exotic cars. Financial woes had already caused Bizzarrini to abandon its Opel-based 1900 GT Europa, a car of similar size which may have inspired Candido and Conrero in their conception for the Sirio. Real production never materialized...

Siva's stated plan was to build 300 cars for the 1969 model year, and another 500 for 1970.  Owing to difficulty in obtaining financing, and Ford's disinclination to assist with production, only 3 prototypes escaped from the SIva workshops, with an undetermined handful of "production" specimens built before shutting down in 1970. Ford's of Britain's in-house GT70 project didn't do much better, and the only mid-engined Ford-powered cars to emerge from Italy during this period turned out to be the V8-powered De Tomaso Mangusta and Pantera. There would be another Italian GT powered by the Ford V6, but that's a story for another day.

*Footnote:  The mid-engined Mustang prototype was the subject of "The First Mustang: Ford's Forgotten Mustang I", posted here way back on August 26, 2015.  For a look at a front-engined Italian GT that actually made it into production with Ford power, see "The Etceterini Files Part 25: OSI-Ford 20M TS—The Anti-Fiat from a Fiat Ally", posted here on March 21, 2021.  Finally, other automotive projects by Virgilio Conrero were featured in "The Etceterini Files Part 12", posted on November 28, 2017.

Photo Credits:
Top, 3rd & 4th from top:  Siva on flickr.com

2nd:  Giovanni Michelotti, on epocauto.it

Bottom: allcarindex.com