Anti-Ferraris Steal the Show at Automezzi 2022

A flotilla of Italian cars steamed into Anderson Park in Wheat Ridge, Colorado for Automezzi XXXII on July 17, marking nearly a third of a century for the concours.  Sponsored by Ferrari of Denver, the show was naturally host to new and old examples of that marque, which has been around since 1947.  For a few visitors, however, the show was stolen by interlopers designed to challenge Ferrari on the track and in the showroom.  This red car is one of those...

What do we have here?  It's an ATS 2500GTS, built in the wake of a walkout by Ferrari engineers in 1962, when several Ferrari staffers including engineers Carlo Chiti and Giotto Bizzarrini quit after arguments with Enzo Ferrari's wife Laura, who had invested in Ferrari's business.  They gravitated to a new company, Automobili Turismo e Sport, founded by Count Giovanni Volpi, who had experienced his share of difficulties obtaining and maintaining Ferraris for his private racing team.  With two partners, Volpi and his team of exiled Ferrari engineers first challenged Ferrari with new Formula 1 single seaters, hiring American Phil Hill, who had won the World Championship for Ferrari in '61, to drive their new 1.5 liter V8 in 1963.  Chassis design issues meant Hill's only finish that year was 11th place in the Italian GP.  Teammate Giancarlo Baghetti only managed 15th place in the same race. That same year, however, ATS showed their promising new 2500GT, like the F1 car a mid-engined design, and one of the first offered to the public as a road car, with the GTS version pictured aimed at road racing...

Carlo Chiti's SOHC V8 engine of 2.5 liters was mated to a 5-speed Colotti transaxle, and Franco Scaglione designed an aerodynamic shell to cover Bizzarrini's  space frame chassis, which was more rigid than that of the F1 car.  Braking was by 4-wheel discs.  The bodies were built in steel and alloy by Allemano, with more alloy panels going onto the racing GTS, which developed 242 hp compared with 217 for the GT.  It was an advanced specification for 1963; what went wrong?  

The failure of the ATS GP cars reflected no glory on the firm's other efforts, and the partners had trouble agreeing on approaches, as well as getting financing for the production car effort.  In addition to the two Tipo 100 Formula 1 cars, it appears that at least 8 of the 2-passenger coupes emerged from the factory before production ended in 1964.  One car was delivered to GM Styling VP Bill Mitchell, and 3 of those 8 coupes were the GTS model pictured here.  Other sources, including Stephen Bell, the owner of this car, have said as many as 14 cars were built.  Only 5 of the ATS coupes are known to survive.  This example won 1st Place in the Etceterini class, as well as Best in Show.  

Below, the Ghia Gilda Streamline X* seems to hover over the field.  The 1955 show car was intended to be powered by a turbine engine, but remained an unpowered shell during a long stay at the Henry Ford Museum which ended in 1969, and for decades under other owners.   Finally, Scott Grundfors installed an AiResearch turbine in 2005, so the car can now be driven, once one masters the hand controls; as in the original design by Giovanni Savonuzzi, there are no foot pedals.  This is in keeping with the jet aircraft theme, but may be a bit disorienting at first to non-pilots. The engine installation looks as though it was there from the beginning, like Savonuzzi's jet-themed door handles.  

The Apollo 3500GT* appeared in 1964, the year after the ATS and Lamborghini had first challenged Ferrari.  LIke those cars, it is also a sort of Anti-Ferrari. At Milt Brown's International Motors in Oakland, CA, the idea was to offer Italian style and performance with American ease of maintenance by using Buick's aluminum-block, 215 cubic inch V8. Ron Plescia's original body design was modified by Franco Scaglione (the ATS body designer) before the car went into limited production by Intermeccanica* in Italy.  Owner Kurt Brakhage took home the Best of Show trophy at last year's Automezzi, and the car was a crowd-pleaser again this year, when it received the Director's Cup.

I'd photographed this car at the Lafayette Cars & Coffee a few years ago. The Apollo story ended like the ATS story, and for similar reasons.  The car builders underestimated how much money it would take to get a promising idea into production, and the operation was under-financed from the beginning.

Styling, especially the nose and grille design Scaglione substituted for the original twin grilles, was in keeping with the Ferrari Alternative  theme.  Scaglione designed a convertible too, but only 11 of those were built, along with one 2+2.  Total production of the Apollo 3500GT and later 5000GT (with 300 cubic inch Buick V8) was under 90 cars.

Below, an Alfa Romeo Montreal, built from 1970-77 but never offered in the US, forms a link with the ATS from a few years earlier.  The reason is that engineer Carlo Chiti went to work for Alfa Romeo after ATS folded, designing 2-liter, dry-sump 4-cam V8s for the first Type 33 road racers.  In the same year they appeared, Alfa displayed an unnamed show car designed by Marcello Gandini at Montreal's Expo 67.  It was originally powered by the familiar twin-cam four from the Giulia, and shared a shortened Giulia chassis.  When Alfa Romeo decided to put the car into production in 1970, they adopted a 2.6 liter version of the Type 33 V8.  Around 3,900 Montreals were built before production ended in 1977.  At least one 3 liter car was built for road racing.  This 1972 example won 1st Place in the Alfa Romeo class for owner Jason Smith.

There were two long rows of Alfa Romeos, including the row of red, mid-engined 21st century 4Cs in the background.  But our attention was caught by this Type 750 Giulietta spider from 1958, in the same ownership since 1965.  The owner had restored it and modified it for racing after crashing the car early in his ownership, and the car now runs with a 1,750cc Giulia replacing the original 1,300cc engine.

An Alfa 1900 berlina (sedan) is a rare sight in America, as it was never imported here in significant numbers.  It Italy, though, the 1900, with cast iron block and twin-cam alloy heads, was Alfa Romeo's first mass-produced car.  Like later Alfa sedans, its lively performance made it popular with the police, as well as with those who had reasons to run from the police. 

Only two Lancias showed up at Automezzi.  A Scorpion (called Montecarlo in Europe) mid-engined coupe rests behind a maroon Fulvia.  The long-lived Fulvia (1963-76) was the last completely new design from Lancia's engineering office to go into production before the 1969 Fiat takeover.  The narrow-angle alloy V4 powers the front wheels, as it had in Lancia's flat-four Flavia, the first Italian front-drive production car.  This car had the 1,300cc engine, but the1,600 HF was the most powerful, and there was also a Zagato-bodied Sport. The early Eighties Scorpion picks up the GT idea with its twin-cam, Fiat 124 based Beta engine.  

Below, a blue Ferrari Dino 246GT gets a place in the sun next to a 355.  The 246 series was sold from 1969-'74 ('73 in the US) and features a 4-cam, 65 degree V6 with iron block and alloy heads.  The similar-looking 206GT ('67 to '69) had an aluminum block.  The F355 (mid-1994 to 1999) went with a 3.5 liter, alloy block with 5 valves per cylinder, its main innovation over the previous 348 model. The car also offered 6-speed transaxles in manual or automated manual form.  Progress, as the 20th century began to fade...

Below is an example of Ferrari's 288GTO, the Group B road racer loosely based on  the 308 GTB that Ferrari produced in 272 specimens from 1984 to 1987.  The body design is a subtle rework of Leonardo Fioravanti's 308GTB for Pininfarina, with fenders contoured for wider wheels and tires, and a welcome lack of wings and fins.  Only the doors were steel, with a Kevlar hood and Kevlar / carbon fiber roof, and fiberglass elsewhere.  Weight was thus kept down to 2.557 pounds.

The 2.8 liter, 4-cam V8 employs 2 turbochargers to make 395 bhp and 366 lb.-ft. of torque.  Unlike the transversely-mounted engine in the Ferrari 308 series, it was longitudinal, so that the 288GTO has 4 inches more wheelbase than the 308GTB.

There were plenty of 21st century Ferraris too, in both V12 and V8 varieties, to cheer those who are not thoroughly disappointed with the 21st century...

There were plenty of other 21st century cars at Automezzi XXXII too, including this row of Lamborghinis, all of which appeared showroom fresh. For many visitors, the old cars held more magnetism.  While historians would point out that brand new cars were often displayed at concours of the Thirties (where they were the whole point) and Fifties, at the end of the morning it was easy for a visitor's mind to drift back to the hand-built artistry of the six-decade old ATS, and the zany optimism of the 1955 Ghia Gilda jet car when forming a picture of this show.

*Footnote:  Previous posts in this blog reference some of the subject cars as follows.  Dates are in parentheses:  

ATS:  "Forgotten Classic Revival Show:  ATS 2500GT and GTS" ( November 11, 2018).  Serenissima:  "Forgotten Classic:  Serenissima---The Winged Lion is the Rarest Beast of All" (March 20, 2019).

Intermeccanica including Apollo GT:  "The Etceterini Files Part 28:  Intermeccanica, Sometimes Forgotten, Still in Business" (January 12, 2022).

Photo Credits:  All photos are by the author except the shot of the Apollo GT with owner holding Best of Show (Kurt Brakhage).