We Owe A Debt Of Gratitude To Early Luxury Automotive Products

You may well have noticed gorgeous, massive cars instraight eight engine, and was later joined, then
classic movies. What happened to these car makers?replaced by the Tipo 8A. Customers purchased a
Were they innovators or just producers of boats orchassis and ordered whatever body tickled their fancy
other monstrosities of little innovative value? Sort offrom a coachbuilder. The well known high end
like big tank S.U.V. trucks in these days of $ 3 a galloncoachbuilder of the time Sala and Castanga
gasoline. Indeed you may have spotted such cars asaccounted for most of them. Others built to the likes of
the Italian made Isotta Fraschine in classic movies suchFleetwood and Barker.
as the movie "Sunset Boulevard" which starred GloriaOne of the lighter and more powerful Super Spinto
Swanson. These cars were not only the highest endversions of the *A finished sixth in the first Mille Miglia ,
luxury models of their days but they introduced earlydriven by none other than Count Maggi , one of the
on many advanced features into cars as well as1000 -mile road race founders and originators. He was
moving ahead and reinforcing standards of reliabilityaccompanied by Bindo Maserati. Bindo and his brother
and durability of motor vehicles. The thin edge of theAlfieri were then working for Isota Fraschini as testers.
wedge even then. Back in 1929 when the Tippo 8AMost of the parts for the first Masaerati cars were
primo motor car was delivered to its first waitingmade at Isotta's factory on Via Monterosa in Milan.
owners , the automotive name and models if IsotoLaunched in April 1931, the Tipo 8B is generally
Fraschini were held in the same breath , prestige andconsidered as Isotto Fraschini's finest automobile
level as those of Rolls-Royce and Hispano-Suiza. Theproduct. It offered more performance than its
story starts in Milan, Italy thirty years earlier whenpredecessor. About 950 of these fine motor vehicles
Cesare Isotta and Vincenzio Fraschino joined forceswere manufactured and sold. The Tipo 8B Automobile
and went into the "newfangled" car business.product line encountered strong opposition from the
At that time Italy was a poor country, they soonlikes of Rolls-Royce, Hispano and Bugatti. By the mid
realized that with their limited car market, and luxurynineteen thirties the Isotta Frascnini car production
car market the need, indeed the necessity to exportsystem and enterprise was out of the automobile
their products. The enterprising partners first shipped abusiness. It made a short comeback after the time
car to the United Sates in 1902 and established theperiod approximately of the post Second World War II
Isotta Import Company in New York just five yearsperiod when the Tipo 8C Monterosa appeared to a
later. In 1908, Isotta won Sicily's super tough Targeafanfare of postwar trumpets. The Post World War II
Florio race and notched up more than severalTipo 8C Monterosa was a most interesting concept
important auto races in America. Two years later, thecar of its time period - a very big car with a V-8
Italians launched the mighty KM model, which sportedengine its tail. Rather unbelievably, or perhaps
10.6 liter, four cylinder, and sixteen valve engine. It wouldWe owe a debit of gratitude to these early luxury
storm along at 90 mph at a time when few aircraftautomobile innovators and producers in that what we
could achieve that in flight.take today for automotive vehicle features ,
After World War I, Isotta Fraschini decided toengineering as well as reliability started early on with
concentrate on the lucrative and prestigious luxury endthe expectations of purchasers of these luxury
of the automotive market. The 5.9 liter Tipo 8 arrived inautomobile products.
1909 - powered by the world's first series production