Maremma is a picturesque region in Italy comprising the bucolic olive groves and wineries of southern Tuscany, long-lost Etruscan tombs, metalliferous hill sides and your choice of the black sands of the Lazio beaches or the golden sands of the Torre Mozza. It’s also the name given to one of the most perfect pieces of automotive design ever created.
This Pininfarina wagon.
Carrozzeria Pinin Farina would most certainly have been commissioned to build the odd shooting brake for its well-heeled clientele in the 1930s. But it was not until 1955 that Maestro Battista decided to create a showcar using the longroof form. No doubt inspired by the Chevrolet Corvette-based Nomad seen at the 1954 GM Motorama, the 1955 Fiat 1100/103 TV Break (top row) was followed in 1956 by the Fiat 1200 Sport Wagon (bottom left) that was actually built in small numbers. The most populous Pinin Farina ‘short’ longroof from this period – the Austin A40 – was not quite a wagon, but is enough to qualify. This prototype from 1956 pictured lower right featured thin pillars not seen on the eventual production models.
Although Battista ‘Pinin’ Farina was preparing to hand over the business to son Sergio and son-in-law Renzo Carli, he was still the guiding light of this iconic firm. Continually brimming with ideas, this sketch from 1959 in his own hand shows he was thinking about the longroof as a purely aesthetic form.
The Dino provided Carrozzeria Pininfarina with many opportunities for interpretation. Above is the Fiat Dino Parigi, a front-engined (and hence Fiat) showpiece first seen at the Paris Motor Show in 1967. It is catalogued as a berlina, which is technically a saloon, but the longroof form is clearly part of the intent. Those shutlines around the rear window appear to be some sort of hatch opening, but I’m not sure if it’s really functional. It was joined in 1968 by the Fiat Dino Ginevra, on which the roof line falls towards a lower-set rear plane.
This Fiat 132 Giardinetta appears less exotic. Take a closer look at the rear glass and you’ll see why it was never going to reach production, but that’s not to say Pininfarina weren’t able to produce practical wagons. A host of Peugeot wagons successfully manufactured for production, featured here, demonstrate the carrozzeria’s mastery of the subject. Fiat availed themselves of a variety of names for their wagons; familiare, giardinetta, panorama and break – a generic term also employed by the French and originally the name for heavy carts used to break-in horses.
It was with a Peugeot that Pininfarina created the first of three iconic sports wagons. The 1971 504 Break Riviera was derived from the 504 coupe and cabriolet, and makes an interesting svelte counterpoint to the overfull volume of the saloon-derived 504 wagon. Catalogued as a one-off, it appears to have been resprayed from this blue to a less attractive brown and had short roof-rails placed in the stepped roof plane. Or else there’s another 504 Riviera out there (fingers crossed).
The third of this Pininfarina wagon triumvirate was the Lancia Gamma Olgiata. Derived from the 1976 Gamma Coupe, the 1982 Olgiata was demonstrating how fresh this design language was six years later. And still is today.
The second iconic wagon found its origins in the 1969 Fiat 130 sedan. This in-house styling effort from Fiat came equipped with a 2.8 litre V6, later enlarged to 3.2 litres. It was conceived to compete against the best of the European luxury marques, but ultimately fell short of its ambitions.
A coupe version of the 130 was commissioned from Pininfarina. When it was shown in 1971 this shape was immediately lauded by the styling community and the public alike. Penned by Paolo Martin, it was the spiritual successor to the influential Florida II. I will be covering the Fiat 130 Coupe in depth sometime soon.
In 1974, Pininfarina presented two variations of the Fiat 130 Coupe. The four-door Opera and three-door Maremma were both uncompromising extensions of the franchise.
Paolo Martin had left Pininfarina by the time these variations were being prepared. Lorenzo Ramaciotti styled the Opera, and I assume it was his hand guiding the markers for this rendering of the Maremma as well.
Speaking purely subjectively, I find it almost impossible to improve on the Coupe’s shape. Yet somehow the Maremma manages to do exactly that. The C-pillar has been widened with a muted metal plate setting silver against the deep gold of the body work. A sculpted spoiler was incorporated into the rear of the roof panel, apparently to keep rain off the rear window. The side window featured a small ‘venetian blind’ at the trailing edge, reducing some of the visual length of these panes. Everything fits. Perfectly.
The prototype was a fully-functioning car. The rear seats folded down to give a generous, luxuriously-appointed, cargo space. The thick gold velour on the seats was complemented by centre panels in patterned blue fabric – a feature not seen on the Coupe. The Reliant Scimitar GTE, Volvo 1800ES and Lancia Beta HPE were downsized versions of the same concept that met a public demand. The Maremma, however, was something more; closer to Radford’s shooting-brake Aston Martins in scale and ambition (even though it was still ‘just’ a Fiat). What type of purchaser was this car actually conceived for?
Gianni Agnelli, like Henry Ford II, was the grandson of the founder of a car company. He was the princeling heir to Fiat who had lost his father early in life. But the similarities end there. Before he died, Gianni’s grandfather told his grandson to ‘Have a fling for a few years and get it out of your system’. With Fiat in the capable hands of Vittorio Valletta, Gianni Agnelli became the epicentre of the emerging European jetset and enjoyed a twenty-year fling before duty called in 1966.
He partied hard and bedded many; in 1952 he was apparently caught in flagrante and crashed his car while fleeing the scene, breaking his leg in six places. Despite the pain this injury inflicted upon him for the rest of his life, his love of driving never diminished.
His taste in cars was informed but idiosyncratic. He would order Pinin Farina-bodied Ferraris with instructions to the maestro that the car look like no other Ferrari. The first of these bluff-grilled beasts was a 375, which was followed by a 400 Superamerica (top left). This 400 was twinned with an almost identically-bodied Maserati 5000GT. Another of his famous Ferraris was the 365P (top right). This ungainly interpretation of the Dino body housed a V12 engine and three abreast seating, with the driver in the centre.
Despite his vast wealth, this medicine-bottle blue Fiat 125 was one of his favourite cars; perfect for the man without peer to thrash about the streets of Turin. Another car he enjoyed was a pre-production Fiat 130 Coupe in a unique cherry-red light metallic hue. This car would take him from Turin to Rome and back the same day. Agnelli’s chauffeur was known to spend his time in the passenger seat talking soccer.
Agnelli ordered an extra special Carrozzeria Introzzi-bodied Fiat 130 Familiare. Four of these Introzzi wagons were produced; one went to his brother Umberto, another was said to be used on one of the Agnelli estates and the fourth was owned by an associate of the family. Only one, known as the Villa d’Este, had the wooded sides and wicker basket used for ferrying passengers, skis and poles to the slopes of St Moritz. Gianni’s.
When Gianni Agnelli laid eyes on the Maremma, he determined that it was to be his. Registered under his name in April 1975, it earned the sobriquet ‘curbside concept’. With an unlimited operating budget, Agnelli would not have spared this rare beauty at all from his driving proclivities. How or where he used it is not clear, and it only re-appeared publicly in a Veneto garage in 2004 – I assume in someone else’s ownership.
As with many of their more pragmatic concepts, Pininfarina was hoping the Maremma and Opera would become production models. The 130 Coupe’s antecedent, the Fiat 2300 Ghia Coupe was originally a show-car without commission. Fiat picked it up and it became a success, selling more than twice as many examples as the 130 coupe within a similar timeframe. Ghia also produced the 2300 Club, pictured above. The parallels between this model and the Maremma are obvious. Ghia went so far as to spruik the Club in brochure pages, but I’m not sure how many were produced.
As for the Maremma, journalist Martin Buckley – who knows much about PF and the 130 Coupe – writes that three Maremmas were built, which would suggest that two of these went immediately into private ownership. I have never seen images of these other two, but I’m hoping one of them will appear for sale here in Australia in an obscure classified unseen by anyone else. Fingers crossed.
Further reading
600 Multipla – a much smaller Fiat wagon
An eloquent account of a car that doesn’t do much for me. I have mixed feelings about the Fiat 130 Coupe aesthetically — it walks an unusually precise line between impressively subtle and just bland, which means that it’s not quite my thing, but I can immediately grasp the sort of person it’s aimed at.
The Maremma doesn’t work for me at all. I’m reminded of a remark historian Michael Sedgwick once made about the severity of Pininfarina styling, of which I think the Maremma is a prime example. It’s so severe that it reminds me of the Dogme 95 school of filmmaking. I think ultimately the minimalism just doesn’t work with the 130’s proportions; if it were the size of a Fiat 124, I might like it better, but my reaction is “nothing — and a lot of it.”
Heretical as it sounds, I think the 1976 Toyota Corolla Liftback (T50), also based on a coupe shell, is a more appealing shape. So is the original Scimitar GTE, although the later SE6 version started to become a little too blocky for my tastes.
Dogme 95… you’re breaking my heart. Hehehe.
I remember my Coupe being remarked upon disparagingly as simply a two-door XD Falcon. It definitely goes to taste; when I was reading William Stopford’s elegy for the Caddy wagon, I was thinking of my own feelings for this shape. I like curves too, sometimes.
d’oh. Wrong pic.
Lol @ both these posts. “2 door XD”. Ouch. The XD isn’t a bad looking car though.
I think I prefer the Peugeot to the Fiat, and actually find myself quite attracted to the standard 130 sedan, I can’t remember seeing one before.
The photo of Agnelli in his Ferrari is cool. I remember him being interviewed on a UK TV show called Gazzetta Football Italia, he spoke with a posh English accent – apparently he had an English nanny or governess or somesuch.
My disconnect with the Maremma is not with its angularity per se, but its determination to present large areas of very rigid shapes with minimal relief. (The design is nothing if not deliberate, so I have to assume that’s intentional.) It’s the reason I compare it to severe schools of filmmaking: One may criticize an over-reliance on cheap tricks and cinematic cheats, but at the same time, formal rigidity can become really exhausting to look at.
True, but when simple forms are juxtaposed so sublimely, it reaches transcendence.
I know what you’re saying in terms of cinema. Lars von Trier was trying to deny the overblown artifice of cinema with the Dogme 95 thing (in a overly simplified nutshell), but I prefer Mamet’s concept of ‘uninflected’ narrative drive and mise en scene. Best demonstrated by Tarantino’s ‘Jackie Brown’ as opposed to the dire rubbish that followed. Pish… hehehe
Great writeup. Just a small nitpick : the designer’s name is Paolo, not Paul.
Good call. Fixed.
A quibble in my view; Paolo is just Italian for Paul, as Ian is Gælic for John (Ioannes in Greek, Ivan in Russian, Johannes in German; the letters I and J often have been interchangeable).
Isn’t Sean Gaelic for John????
He means Scottish Gaelic, the Irish one is commonly referred to as “Irish”. So you’re both right.
This car left me a little cold until I saw those interior shots. Not that I’m likely to own anything that was one of 3 specially built.
That’s what I like about Don A’s contributions: a truckload of information about concepts and specialties -supplemented with lots of pictures, sketches, drawings and brochures- I had never heard of before.
My favorites of this CC are the Peugeot 504 Break Riviera and the Lancia Gamma Olgiata.
+1, thanks, Don. I’ll take the coupe over the shooting brake, but they’re all cool.
What does “spruik” mean?
Spruik – speak out for the purpose of making a sale
Thanks, uh, “mate.” 🙂
Agree completely Johannes!
I think there is a replica of the 504 Break Riviera, in Spain painted brown with short roof rails, I am not sure if the original stayed in its original form or where it is now.
Great write up for one of my favourite cars, ever. Thank you!
The Lancia Gamma Olgiata was offered for sale at Techno Classica two weeks ago. For € 165K, apparently.
BtW: Does anyone here have € 165K to spare? it would be for a good cause!
Some people have no taste , no sense of refinement and for sure no sense of style.
Haute couture is not for everyone and the posts demonstrate that well enough.
Not quite Cas. The comments demonstrate the diversity of tastes amongst this community of astonishing automotive knowledge. If I wanted everyone to agree with me, I’d write for one of those wankeur car styling blogs. And disappear up my own….
Pish, I say, pish. Style is an intensely subjective quality.
Awesome story! I’ve always liked Fiats of the 1970s. I find them more attractive than the new Fiats.
Very interesting post. I’ve long felt that the Lancia HPE mentioned is one of the most beautiful designs in the automotive world. BTW… Agnelli was also known to dart around streets of Rome in an X1/9, which he used to stay a few steps ahead of the leftist terrorist/kidnapper groups.
I like it, thanks for all of the info, another well written and researched post. The Fiat 130 has steadily been increasing on my “I like it” scale over the last few years. Something about the square edges and somewhat severe angles.
Love that four door Opera.
And the Lancia Oligata
and the Fiat 130 in the title and the Fiat 132 estate..Really like the rear light treatment on that Fiat 132. It’s kinda simple but looks good at the same time.
If I had to have just one..Maybe I ‘d take the Lancia.
But I never heard of any of these cars before.
Only the 130 Coupe.
Which I like a lot..too.
A lavish and tasty Saturday morning breakfast, Don. I’m still digesting them all.
These all had a powerful spell on me at the time; they were highly seductive alternatives to what Detroit was serving up then. I have always had a major soft spot for this period, and even the lowly Fiat 125 sedan was very appealing to me. It’s right up there for me, with the best of the sports sedans of the time. Too bad the Polski Fiat used the same body (but not mechanicals) and rather degraded its image. And I found the big 130 to be very attractive too. They were a rare treat to spot in Europe back then.
And then the shooting breaks: They all have a lot of appeal, but I will admit that the Maremma does look a bit severe from some angles. The roof should perhaps have been a wee bit lower, or maybe tapered downwards slightly to the rear. The massing is a bit rear-heavy. But what an elegant concept, and that interior is divine.
The Peugeot 504 wears that roof better, although the step-down roof is a bit odd.
Love the 130 Opera; perhaps if that had been the production 130 sedan,it might have done better?
The Lancia is a true gem.
Thanks again; it’s going to be a while before I’m ready for lunch.
Here’s an angle showing the ‘roof racks’. Not very practical, but makes more sense of the stepdown.
Saw this in “World Cars” in the mid 70s somewhere. Instant wagon lust. Love the front and side treatments. Only fly is the back end is too long and I’m not crazy about the step on the back end. Give it a back end more like the Mk 1 Scirocco, and I’d be overcome by bliss.
Thanks for this. The Maremma is indeed one of the best of its type (2 door sports estate/wagon) but I would also say the Lancia was even better looking, although for shear presence none of them can beat Carrozzeria Sports Cars’ attempt…
hehehe… the bread van
Great article, Don. The Lancia HPE has always been a favorite of mine, and I was tempted a few times when there still were a handful of them to be found.
Late to the party but glad I made it. Thanks, Don.
When, I first saw the topic photo, it looked almost like a Lamborghini Jarama… Another Italian shooting brake made around the same time, so I think.
Not sure, if the Jarama qualifies as a shooting brake or just a sleek fastback coupe.
Interesting call. I’d place the Espada as more of a longroof. Could never figure out why Lamborghini had both these models running simultaneously; they both seem so close to each other in packaging.
Good eye, Don.
Yes, the Jarama and Espada were both similar not only in initial execution, but also in their underpinnings… The Jarama shared the same chassis as the Espada, only on a shortened version.
Yes, kinda unusual that Lamborghini offered those two similar models at the same time. They had a pretty good variety of models during that time frame… The Jarama, Espada, the sleek Urraco, and the debut in a few years of the legendary LP400 Countach.
Also, the Jarama was styled by Bertone designer, Marcelo Gandini, who also penned the very identical Iso Lele(yes, the makers of the iconic Grifo sport GT).
Looking at the Lele and the Jarama … It’s easy to see, they are more along the lines of sleek GT tourers, rather than shooting brakes.
Espada was Gandini as well. You want an eye-popper; check out this FNM ‘Alfa/Jarama’…
Years ago I read an article about a car that was described as looking like it was
“machined out of a single block of steel”.
These cars , the 130 coupe , Maremma , and Opera seem to fit that description very well.
The wagon is especially nice . only the black bumper corners spoil it for me.
You’re on a roll, Don – another killer article!
I’m not entirely in love with the subject car, but I do like it… just not nearly as much as I like the other members of the 130 family. I can’t say why, exactly, either. Normally I’m a huge sucker for this “shooting brake” type of body style and I really dig the 504 Break Riviera. Looking at the sublime 130 Opera sedan, I think I may have actually preferred the same Maremma roof with 4-doors underneath it, so perhaps it’s just a matter of not agreeing with the massive rear glass panels.
Of course, I’d still jizz all over myself if it magically showed up in my driveway along with the keys and a title in my name.
And the Ghia 2300S Club?!?! Wow, never saw that one. Like the Maremma, I don’t think it’s necessarily an upgrade (in terms of pure style) over the coupe, but it’s super cool and I’ve got a soft spot for fastbacks of this type. Google search didn’t turn up much for me either – probably one of those cars that was available “on order” and just didn’t receive any/many. In any case, it doesn’t seem like any have survived, unfortunately.
The number of cars like this that came out of Italy (one-offs, low volume coachbuilt specials, sport/racing “derivaziones”) is incredible. I’ve been reading up on Moretti lately, and although I’d known of their existence for years, I had always assumed they were a tiny company that only built a handful of cars. Wrong! Small, yes; but their catalog is completely overwhelming.
This is probably going to be a pretty obscure analogy for many CCers, but I’ve come to see the Italian auto industry much like the rap music industry. One of the things that really piqued my interest when I first got into rap was its novel production and distribution system, which is entirely unique to it. Like all other genres, albums are typically released on major labels with the best production and recording engineers available, but there’s this whole secondary network of mixtapes and DIY/indie label singles floating around out there that you wouldn’t even notice as only a casual fan. “Mixtapes” aren’t necessarily just compilations or re-mixed versions of album tracks either; they’re typically loaded with entirely original content or new verses set to beats from other artists’ songs – and of course the mixtape tracks are geared more towards hardcore fans, frequently delving into wild experimentation that wouldn’t necessarily work on a major label album designed to sell high volume.
In Italy, Fiat was the center of the universe, orbited by Alfa, Lancia, Ferrari, Maserati, Lamborghini, etc. (just as all rappers have a “crew” with their own albums). There were mainstream, high volume models designed, first-and-foremost, to get into the wallets of the Average Giuseppe, but there was also a massive secondary network of carrozzerie and tuning firms constantly re-working and re-imagining the mainstream models or putting their own homegrown style out there as concepts. And they were more experimental; geared more towards the enthusiast or connoisseur. No other country did it quite the same way, at least not after WWII.
I like your mixtape analogy. The new NWA movie is going to show how they took their streetvibe mixtape content and put it on vinyl, first with Eazy-E. And changed the music world.
If you ever come across a book called ‘Bodies Beautiful’ by John Maclellan, you’ll find a very, very good history of coachbuilding including a few chapters explaining how the Italians came to the fore after the war and how others, most notably the British, fell by the wayside. He attributes it mostly to the Italians using technology in aerodynamics and manufacture as much as they could, but the other significant aspect is that they were most successful in transitioning from one-off or small-series producers to manufacturers making bodies in their thousands, particularly PF and Bertone.
Today, it’s different. What was an aesthetic advantage combined with critical mass manufacture has now been subsumed by the majors. VW bought ItalDesign, Bertone went bankrupt and Pininfarina has been on the ropes since 2012.
Another bang-up job – well written and well researched. You have a knack for taking a very specific subject and following all the threads that radiate out from it, to make quite a full story.
As to the Maremma, while it’s undeniably beautiful, I think Paul’s assessment that it’s a bit rear-heavy and could use a bit of downward taper to the roof are good points. From the first direct side-on view, it almost looks like it’s too long–it could use a little less wheelbase and correspondingly less overall length, given the length of the hood and doors. All minor quibbles though, on balance.
My favorite of the bunch has to be the Lancia Gamma Olgiata. The proportions there are just perfect. But (and I don’t consider this a bad thing) does anyone else look at it and see “Audi 100 shooting brake”?
Catching up on CCs today and missed this when it ran. Terrific article Don!