The Intermeccanica Italia: Has It Been Too Long Ignored?

April 8, 2019 By Mike Gulett 137 Comments

Another case where a hybrid (European chassis and body with American power) was slow to appreciate.

by Wallace Wyss –

Founder Frank Reisner was a Hungarian born engineer who, although he had a good job in Canada, that had nothing to do with cars, decided to move with his wife, Paula, to Italy in the late 1950s and began building sports cars. Actually their first project was tuning kits, then they went into Formula Junior, using a Peugeot engine. That was around 1960. They were into sports cars, with twenty-one alloy-bodied Intermeccanica-Puch (IMP) 500 cc-engined cars being made, one of which won at event at the Nürburgring.

Intermeccanica Italia

Then came some American would-be sports car builders, one group of which was Milt Brown and Ned Davis with Ron Plescia, who later became a well known car designer. Their idea was to put on the market a svelte looking sports car similar but with the reliability of an American V8 engine.

About 88 Apollo cars were made from 1961-‘65. The consensus of opinion was that an Italian, Franco Scaglione, touched up the design originally done by Plescia. Scaglione was somewhat of a genius, moving from one automaker and coachbuilder to another, at one time sitting outside the industry for years.

Then came another American entrepreneur, Jack Griffith, a very successful car salesman. His idea was first to buy the British TVR, stick in a Ford V8 and have a rip roaring Cobra competitor.

Intermeccanica Italia

But soon he gravitated to an Italian design when TVR couldn’t keep the cars coming. The new car was designed in Italy, called the Omega and apparently only coupes were made. Engines were 273 Chrysler V8s. Steven Wilder, a writer for Car & Driver, got involved, and roped in a well respected race car builder, Holman Moody, to build out the cars with Ford V8 engines but not all of them got built. Mark Donohue didn’t stay, having gone on to be a racer, eventually driving for Penske.

When those cars were sold off, the Omega was reborn with slight restyling changes, and as an open version, dubbed the Intermeccanica Italia. At last they had the right styling. The Apollo had the misfortune of being designed with a wheel stance that looked old fashioned but the svelte Italia two seater had a more modern look, very Ferrari 275 GTB-ish in the rear with a grille cavity similar to the Ferrari 400SA.

Powerplants seemed to vary again, this time it was a Ford 302 but later they came with a Ford 351, the same as the Pantera engine. The wheels were Magnum 500s, made in America.

One description of the frame design, attributed by a website called Supercars.Net to John Crosswaite, was that it was cobbled together “using parts from various European manufacturers. The engineering was fairly straight forward, using square tubes to form an independent chassis which was welded directly to the body. The company boasted: ‘welded into a single rattle-free unit’. The front was suspended by unequal wishbones and a Mustang live axle was mounted in the rear with coil springs and radius rods.”

The body was steel and very heavy. I remember lifting the hood and being surprised as how heavy it was compared to the alloy hood of a Ferrari.

Who did the styling is difficult to nail down. When I wrote about the car decades ago, that Scaglione did it, I got actual photos from Robert Cumberford saying, no, he did the styling. Supercars.Net says Scaglione was hired only to do a “refresh” adding bumperettes, etc. At any rate, it was a better looking car as the Italia, marred only by having taillights from some other brand instead of its own taillights.

The car was called the Torino for a short period, before Reisner ran into difficulties with Ford, who had registered the Torino name. That was more or less the history of Intermeccanica, they would be doing good and then some larger company would come along and fowl up their plans.

The general consensus was that approximately 500 Italias were made from 1966-’72 (Supercars.Net says 600 were made and the production run ran from 1967 to 1973).

But Reisner was always ready to accept a commission on a new car and somewhere from left field came a request for a station wagon (shooting brake) and eleven of those were made (1966–1972), these called the Murena G (1971) with different and somewhat heavy styling. They were sexy and powerful but you can imagine the handling with a hulking cast iron 429 in the nose.

Intermeccanica Murena

After the Italia was gone there was a car called the Indra, a totally modern up to date design. The Indra had both coupe and convertible versions, and looked like it would succeed with the help of a major automaker Opel, and then suddenly after hundreds were sold, Opel pulled the plug on supplying the Chevy 350 engines, leaving the Indra program in the lurch. But fate intervened. Reisner had heard that the city of San Bernardino CA would make it possible for him to move there in a move to help jump-start manufacturing in their perpetually woebegone berg, but when he got the chassis and body shells to the dock in Los Angeles, they had changed their mind.

Intermeccanica Indra

He then went into making replica cars, a copy of the SS100 Jag called the Squire, that was short lived and a much better car that copied the Porsche Speedster with a fiberglass body. The Speedster survived for decades and was taken with them when the company moved to Canada. After Reisner died, his family continues to make the Speedsters.

NO RESPECT FOR THE ITALIA

I recommend Mrs. Reisner’s book but my purpose here is–similar to my article on the Pantera–to delve into why the Intermeccanica Italia gets no respect. I attribute that to these reasons and am willing to hear more:

1.) The car is perceived of as a “Mongrel” in that it has an American engine not made by its maker, i..e., not purebred. Yet that doesn’t hurt Iso Grifos at all.

2.) The car changed names at least twice, and distributors in America at least twice, so it gave the impression that it was built by a fly-by-night outfit. You didn’t know where you could re-order body panels, windscreens and the like. When Intermeccanica would go into a new type of car they wouldn’t keep making parts for the former models so prospective owners were worried where they could get parts to restore a rough one they found.

3.) No racing. I am not aware of a single Intermeccanica Italia competing in a race like Sebring, Daytona, nor have I ever seen one race at the Monterey Historic. I have seen Iso Rivolta four seaters race at Laguna Seca so I am concluding the Italia was not developed to the point where it would lend itself to racing.

4.) Frequent customizing by owners. This is the bane of the hybrid Italian cars, some owners feeling that, without the automaker there to lean on them for making it non-stock they are home free and can paint it candy color, change the wheels, seats, taillights, you name it, all of which damages the reputation of the car as an appreciating classic. I would say Intermeccanica Italias are generally worth no more today than they were ten years ago, while, for instance, some Ferraris are worth ten times what they were ten years ago (particularly Dinos).

5. Inconsistent Auction Results. With cars like the 275GTB, or Porsche Speedster, you see constantly rising prices fetched at major auctions like RM and Gooding, etc. Porsche Speedsters are now nudging a million for a 4-cam. But the Intermeccanicas are more often found at the more middle class auctions and get wildly inconsistent results—under $25,000 at one auction and over $75,000 at another. I could be way off on values, a ‘72 sold at a 2010 auction at Monterey for $143,000. But I am saying in general you can’t bank on them as a solid investment practically guaranteed to appreciate. When they do sell for heavy bread, I bet they are strictly an “emotional buy,” some high roller sees one for the first time and falls in love (better that than the pole dancer at the casino, though).

6.) No consistent Club. With many marques, such as the Porsche 356 club, many of the editors have been writing about the cars for decades so much is known, there’s many listings for suppliers of parts, and fabricators. But the Intermeccanica clubs seem to come and go, they aren’t a strong force in representing the marque at shows year after year. Yet the Iso and Bizzarrini Owner’s Club started out strong and, though they changed hands, got the word out on the cars and they have, in some models, gone up as much as ten times in price since the club started. A strong club with a nice magazine always helps grow interest in the marque. The Ferrari marque for example, has CAVALLINO and FORZA, both pushing up values by showing fine examples in color and showing the events for the marque around the world.

THE DRIVING

For some long ago assignment I went to Santa Barbara where I met a man who had both a Daytona Spyder and a black Intermeccanica Italia. I liked the husky sound of the Intermeccanica more and, on short sprints around Montecito, it seemed every bit as exciting as the Ferrari. Now Daytona Spyders are worth nearly a million and Intermeccanica Italias are back at the starting gate on value.

RARITY NOT A HELP

You can’t put it down to rarity, for instance if you lump Ferrari Daytonas, putting coupes and spyders together, they outnumber Italias more than two to one. But the phrase “rarer than a Daytona” doesn’t move the value meter needle a single millimeter.

ONE MAN’S OPINION: HOW TO SAVE A MARQUE

I think first a club has to be adequately funded to make a strong show of support. Then too, there has to be one or two owners making the plunge to take one all the way to Pebble Beach quality in restoration and to resist the temptation to “do it better” than the original automaker.

Then too I think owners of restored ones will have to loan them to magazine editors, at least for an hour or two, to get some favorable publicity.

Third, I think a yearly award should be established at some event like Concorso Italiano for the best Italia, get them some recognition.

Intermeccanica Italia

Fourth, I think Intermeccanica should make replacement parts and stand behind what they built. It is embarrassing that they disavow it; even Mercedes and Ferrari are making old parts again, realizing restored cars help sell the new ones. Though Intermeccanica no longer makes Italias, the fact that they don’t make parts makes would be owners wary.

And so it goes. I wish Frank and Paula Reisner would have stuck with the Italia or even Indra and not gone into replicas, but replicas, according to Mrs. Reisner’s book, saved the family and kept them making money.

Now I expect brickbats, and am donning my helmet and flak vest. I am sure Italia owners have something to say….

Let us know what you think in the Comments.

Wallace Wyss

THE AUTHOR: Wallace Wyss is the author of 18 automotive histories and co-host of “Autotalk” broadcast weekly from KUCR FM Riverside.

Editor’s Note:

Intermeccanica is now Electra Meccanica Vehicles Corp. a public company listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange as SOLO. They make electric vehicles. I own shares of Electra Meccanica.

Mike Gulett