silverja

The 1959 Scaglietti - an all aluminum body Corvette - was hand built in Italy. Only 3 of these beautiful Corvettes were ever built for racing in the 1950's. In the classic Italian tradition, these Corvettes had aluminum-paneled bodies that were individually handmade, using the time-honored method of hammers and dollies.

http://www.corvettebuyers.com/scaglietti.html




[Modified by silverja, 7:42 PM 4/10/2004]


[Modified by silverja, 7:43 PM 4/10/2004]

JohnTheStigGalt

Wow that's BEAUTIFUL! When's the last time one of these sold, and what did it go for?

SWCDuke

I don't think any of these cars were ever raced. They were not "production cars", so they didn't fit into the SCCA production class structure, and FIA homologation was never attempted as far as I know.

Both Harley Earl and Bill Mitchell, in particular, had great admiration and ties to the Italian coach builders and were always supportive of their attempts to build Italian inspired bodies on Corvette Chassis.

Several Corvette engine-based "Italian hybrids" did go into limited production, notably the Iso-Rivolta circa 1962, and the Bizarrini GT circa 1968, but neither used Corvette chassis. GM wasn't willing to sell Corvette chassis for production cars, but they sold Corvette engines and supported various efforts by Italian designers and coach builders to produce one-off styling prototypes on Corvette chassis.

The designer was probably Sergio Pininfarina - looks very much like his other cars from the late fifties. Scaglietti build a lot of Pininfarina designs, particularly low volume models like the Ferrari 250 GTO.

Duke

silverja

Thank you for the information. One can only imagine what could have been if Chevy had tried some innovative thinking. I spoke with a vintage racer who drives a late 50's Ferrari and uses a Corvette drivetrain. My goal is to photograph one of these for my web site in the near furture. I am an avid Italian Sports Car fan, partly because of my Italian heritage, and feel the Corvette is the closest American production sports car to rival Italian ones. Every year the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix has a nice show of Ferrari's with a great array of Corvettes nearby. Both the Ferrari owners and the Corvette owners complement and compare each marque. I once heard of a '67 or '68 427 that cruised the European speedways racing Europe's best. Unfortunately, I have never been able to substantiate this story as being true or just a myth. I did hear that at one of the very exclusive casinos in Monaco, the main attraction amongst all the exotics parked in front was a C5. Wish I had a photo of that.

Once again, thank you for the interesting information and I look forward to pursuing the Italian - Corvette connection.




[Modified by silverja, 9:50 PM 4/8/2004]

silverja

I had seen that 1 of the 3 was for sale and offered at $250K. Now if I only had a spare $250k.

71zman

I was at the Peterson Museum In LA last weekend and one of these cars was on display there. Beautiful coachwork, looked like a Ferrari but I must admit the Shelby Daytona Coupe next to it was awful tempting also :yesnod: :yesnod: :yesnod:

desertpilgrim

Please let us all know if you find one of these as a 1958 - they
were all 1959's.

silverja

My typo mistake. Indeed they all were 1959's.

64_365

I believe the Peterson car was purchased at auction for about $155K several years ago during a soft market.

There are some nice photos of one of these in "Corvette - America's Sports Car" by Randy Leffingwell.

The cars are very similar to a Ferrari long wheelbase 250 GT berlinetta, a.k.a. Tour de France. Pinin Farina penned the TdF bodies which were built by Scaglietti. Scaglietti apparently borrowed the design for the Laughlin cars.

Hall's car is in the Patrick Getreide collection in France per an article in the June 2000 issue of Cars & Parts Corvette.
[Modified by 64_365, 8:37 PM 4/10/2004]


[Modified by 64_365, 9:10 PM 4/10/2004]


[Modified by 64_365, 9:15 PM 4/10/2004]

Loren Smith

Here's a new Ferrari Scaglietti:
http://www.ferrari.com/cgi-bin/fworl...ietti_home.jsp

Silver65

A really beautiful car.
Corvette Magazine recently had an article on this one - followed the history of hits creation, how GM was going to sponsor it, but eventually dropped out.
Pretty good read. :seeya

joe58

I believe Jim Hall had one for a short time at least