1960 Fiat 1100 Barchetta

Lot details
Registration No: EU-Reg
Chassis No: 01411
Mot Expiry: None

The Moretti Motor Co. of Italy was founded in Turin, by Giovanni Moretti in 1925, originally to design and build motorcycles, and survived as an independent business until 1989. Having spent World War Two producing commercial vehicles, he then began to produce specialised cars. At first he bravely took on the fabrication of special little engines of his own design, but - like almost every other Italian specialist of the day - he soon found this economically unsupportable, and began mainly using Fiat running gear instead: this was reasonable, especially as the company was based in Turin, where Fiat had its HQ, and principal manufacturing facilities.

Because Fiat made hundreds of thousands of cheap family cars in the 1950s and 1960s, Moretti found a ready supply of highly-tuneable engines, and by 1959 had produced a Fiat 1100-based Formula Junior single-seater. It was this car, no question, which helped inspire the birth of the front-engined 'Barchetta' two-seater style which is now on sale. Like several other small-scale car-makers of the period, especially in the UK and Italy, there seemed to be a demand for sports cars to race in the 1100cc class - and this Fiat-powered, Moretti-bodied machine was one of them.

Until the 1970s, Moretti built a considerable number of Fiat-based road cars, using near-standard Fiat chassis, platform and running gear - more than 2,600 cars in 1967, for instance, but only just 1,071 cars in 1974 - but Moretti racing sports cars were also built in tiny numbers, usually to order by wealthy Italian private owners.
By any standards, the car on sale is a real rarity, especially in the UK, especially as the entire structure - chassis, body shell and some of the suspension - was developed by Moretti. According to the Italian documentation - estratto cronologico - accompanying this machine (which still carries its original regional Italian road-car number plates), it was registered as a Fiat open two-seater in 1960.

The bespoke chassis is tubular, clearly inspired by the layout of other famous Italian race cars of the period, and the two-seater sports-racing body shell, manufactured from aluminium, while individually shaped, has many visual likenesses to famous Italian cars - Ferrari and Maserati - of the same period. The wrap-round windscreen, and the hump behind the driver's head, were not only fashionable at the time, but were also aerodynamically efficient.

Built in 1960, and with a race-tuned 1089cc Fiat 1100 engine backed by a four-speed manual gearbox, this car was clearly produced with motor racing, and not touring, in mind, for the interior trim and equipment is very sparse. This was always a privately-owned race car, and before being brought over to the UK, it was reportedly located in a noble Roman family for more than 30 years.

The body shell itself has been skilfully up-dated, and is in its original red, while the remainder of the ensemble is complete. The passenger compartment, and the running gear may benefit from a sympathetic restoration, but most such Italian hardware is still available in its native country.