by Mike –
I love it when My Car Quest readers send in photos and stories. I try to publish them all but I know I take a long time to do so sometimes. Here are some photos below and a slide show sent in by Alexander Oet in Belgium.
He has been an Iso fan and collector for many years and he seems to keep his cars too including an Iso Grifo, Iso Fidia, Iso Rivolta GT and Iso Lele.
Iso Fidia
Text and photos by Alexander Oet
Hi Mike,
I have to congratulate you on My Car Quest; it is nice to be with a big group of classic “hybrid” car people.
I have collected cars through the years and many are sometimes very rare cars.
The first car I bought was a light blue Iso Lele 351 Cleveland, which I bought in Brussels from a wealthy factory owner. He just bought a new Silver Shadow and gave the Lele to his wife. She was afraid to drive it and I was lucky to be able to buy it.
I was 19 years old and paid 200,000 Belgium Francs for this Lele (5,000 Euros now).
Two years later I was able to buy from the first owner Iso Grifo No. 411. Again a wealthy factory owner who lived in a castle near Hasselt.
Iso Grifo and a fan
He parked it in his garage there but during the test drive he told me he was selling it because he was afraid that his 19-year-old son would drive it and crash it. I was 21 and drove off as a happy new owner with this Grifo.
The price I paid was 400,000 Belgium Francs (10,000 Euros now) and it took me several months to pay it off. This was 32 years ago. And believe it or not I still own those cars!
Looking back now it is funny to see that the prices of those two different cars are now really out of proportion with each other. [Back then the Grifo was 2 times the price of a Lele and today the Grifo is 8 to 10 times the price of a Lele…Mike]
The Lele, when sorted out well, is a fantastic car to drive, high speed AND low speed. Since then my strange collection of cars has grown gradually.
I sent pictures of the Iso Fidia that we restored. As you can see when well done it is a real head turner and great driver.
Iso Fidia
I sent some old pictures of a gathering we had near Venlo with Iso’s about 28 years ago, where you see the Grifo No. 411.
Iso Gathering
Iso Gathering
With the Iso Rivolta 327 cid and 5-speed I went on a rally through 2,000 miles of desert in Morocco two years ago with no problems – even at 200 km an hour with a police escort!
Thank you and greetings from a fellow car guy in Belgium,
Alexander
Great shots of the Rivolta GT in Morocco, I remember a Griffon article that showed that car going through a river too while on the same trip!
Mike , the Griffon article you talk about was a GT owned by the prince of Morocco, many years ago.
He was also a rally enthusiast.
The photo of the GT from Alexander was a rally only last year.
Regards
Simon Vels
~ this is a great group of photographs. the Frua AC is another of my long time favorites. thanks for featuring this album.
Talking about the frua …
Fantastisch Car , had a rally from New York To Miami with my wife 4 Months ago.
In Amelia island there was an older guy who was waiting by our parked car just to talk to me.
Turned out that he had an origanal 7 liter Cobra and never new of the existence of the Italian body built successor of the cobra .
They made 4 Lhd spiders of a total of 29 and this is probably the most original one, still in its first paint.
The nice thing about those hybrid cars its that the 428 was not driven the last +\-15 years , we did an oil change , new carburetor and send the car by container to the USA for the rally …
I thought , if we come in to trouble mechanicly , parts will be an easy find.
No problem from the City of New York center all the way to Miami .
Only an small short heating problem after we raced the on the Daytona circuit in between …:-)
This makes our hobby so nice and adventures !
I will send some pictures of the 428 conv to post
Greetings to the my car quest readers and happy driving
Alexander Oet
Alexander,
Thank you for this message. It sounds like you had fun. I hope to see your photos.
I love the Frua 428 and the convertible version is extra beautiful.