by Wallace Wyss –

There are unsung heroes in every field. Writing about rare cars for my Incredible Barn Finds books (Enthusiast Books, Hudson WI) I keep running across the name Franco Scaglione.

I finally began researching him and after some research feel it is one of the car world’s great tragedies that this man couldn’t have been more utilized in his time.

He first studied aeronautical engineering but eventually brought that knowledge to the car field.

Born on September 26, 1916 in Florence, Italy to a medical family, his father being an army doctor and his mother a captain of the Italian Red Cross service.

He served in WW II, joining up and being sent to Libya. But in 1941 he was taken prisoner and sent to a detention camp in India for the next five years.

It took him a year at home in Italy to recover. In the late ‘40s he went to Bologna hoping to In ’48, he married Maria Luisa Benvenuti and fathered a daughter, Giovanna.

He realized the auto industry was based in Torino and moved there in 1951. He first contacted a big name then (who had made in roads in America) and Battisa Farina (later Pininfarina) but wasn’t hired by him. One Italian biographer says he did do a car for Pininfarina but Pininfarina wouldn’t let him put his name on it, so he instead went to Pininfarina’s rival, Nuccio Bertone, with whom he created many memorable cars including the Lancia Aurelia B50 1951 (5 seater coupe with Balbo bodywork), the Abarth 1500 Bertone Berlinetta of 1952, and the unusual Ferrari-Abarth 166 mm / 53 spider competition Bertone of 1953.

But most memorable were the three Berlina Aerodynamico Technica cars, the BATs, all on Alfa chassis, cars for which he was properly credited.

The first was rolled out in 1953. The goal was to create cars with the lowest possible drag coefficient possible.

You might say these sparked the tail fin era, each had fins but each of the fin treatments was differed. Each year between 1953 and 1955 a new BAT was rolled out at the Turin Auto show. One had a drag coefficient of 0.19, beating anything made today in production.

In 1959 Scaglione decided to hang out his shingle on his own, and tied in with an Austrian immigrant to Italy, Carlo Abarth, for whom he designed the Porsche 356 B Abarth Carrera GTL, which was supposed to be bodied by Zagato but instead was farmed out to a firm with lesser talents, Rocco Motto.

Ferrucio Lamborghini recognized his talent and hired him to do the concept car, the Lamborghini 350 GTV that first put his car on the map. Ironically when the car was shown, the engine wouldn’t fit so the car was loaded with bricks so it would fit right during the show.

Unfortunately the radical design was not approved for production and the production Lamborghini 350GT was much tamer, making it much more difficult to outshine Ferrari (until the Miura came along, designed by Gandini).

Then Scaglione went to another fledgling automaker, ATS, for whom he did the mid engine coupe bodied by Allemano, the ATS 2500 GT. He also was among the first Italians to design for a Japanese automaker, in doing the 1900 Skyline Sprint for Prince (Japan).

There was a one off called, the Titania Veltro GTT, and still another fledgling automaker, this one a Hungarian turned Canadian turned Italian, Frank Reisner, who had the firm Intermeccanica. I don’t know if he influenced the Apollo GT* (see the editor’s note below), but he is credited with the Torino, Italia GFX, Italia IMX, and the Indra.

Many feel his masterwork was a short lived street car based on a race car, the 1967 Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale. A mere eighteen were built, and in a way it was a fulfillment of that promise often promised but seldom fulfilled, a race car turned into a GT car with none of the excitement lost.

 

Franco was not a businessman. He failed to see Intermeccanica was not built on a sound footing and lost much of his own personal savings in Intermeccanica.

He walked out on the auto industry, moving to a small village in Tuscany in 1981, living a secluded life where it is reported his health deteriorated plus there were rumors of drug addiction. In 1991, he was diagnosed with lung cancer, and lived only two more years, dying June 19th 1993, at the age of 76.

He has largely been forgotten, but if you like Italian sports cars of the Fifties and Sixties, you can’t help but be reminded of his genius when you discover that he designed some of the most significant sports cars of the ‘50s and ‘60s.

 

Let us know what you think in the Comments.

THE AUTHOR: Wallace Wyss’ fourth book in the Incredible Barn Finds series is due out in November from Enthusiast Books, Hudson, WI

* Editor’s note – Franco Scaglione did indeed work on the Apollo GT design which was originally penned by American, Ron Plescia. Scaglione was hired to fine tune the styling after a protorype was built.

Mike Gulett