Imagine going down your street, on a sunny Sunday morning, and seeing a gorgeous late ‘60s Ferrari stopped at the lights. Well, that was last year. So far, I was finding 2021 rather tame. But spring has come slightly early, so we’re already entering prime classic car season in Tokyo. Right on cue, a couple Sundays ago, this obscenely rare Fiat rolled up.
At first, from a distance and with another car in the way, all I could make out was that it was an old sports car. I figured it might be an MGA, maybe an Alfa. But I soon recognized the unmistakably strange face of the factory-bodied Otto Vu. It’s one of those machines you read about, or perhaps see in a museum, but certainly not on the street, even in its birthplace of Turin.
Speaking of which, the last V8-powered Fiat I ever saw was in a small museum in Thailand. It was a Ghia-bodied car, which gave the Fiat chassis a completely different (and much more modern) appearance. By comparison, this factory body, designed by Luigi Rapi, looks stuck in the past. The clearly separate wings, the two-piece windshield, the rear wheel spats, the fuselage-like fastback – it’s all a bit 1940.
Not that it’s necessarily a bad thing. The second series coupés, like our feature car, also look like no other and pioneered the slanted quad headlamp setup that became all the rage by the end of the ‘50s. And if nothing else, the slippery Rapi body was perfectly suited to the car’s nature. It was actually tested in a wind tunnel, which was rarely the case for the ones made by Zagato, Vignale and all the other fancy Italian houses.
Brochure excerpt, 1954
For a more thorough look at this amazing car, I would suggest revisiting the piece I wrote about the Ghia version. The TL/DR is that Fiat’s Dante Giacosa created an all-alloy V8 with a view to win the Italian championship 2-litre class, which Fiat won in 1954 and subsequently dominated for years, long after production was halted. The small 105hp V8 (115hp on the later cars) was mated to a 4-speed gearbox and installed in a low-slung chassis with all-round independent suspension.
The car was premiered at the 1952 Geneva Motor Show (above: at the Paris event, six months later) and sales were immediately… modest. Well, it was a risky gambit by Fiat. The 8V cost way more than anything else coming out of Turin, and Fiat had to compete with more established sports car makers, such as Ferrari, Maserati or Cisitalia. As soon as the word got round that the 8V was a great car, it went out of production.
Fiat provided their V8s for to SIATA to make a few (probably less than 40 units) of their exclusive 208S spiders from 1953 to 1955. Other than that, the 8V had no descendants and probably cost Fiat a pretty penny – they could afford it, but it’s telling that this would be the only 8-cyl. Fiat ever devised. All in all, just 114 chassis of this ultra-sophisticated sports car were made from 1952 to 1954, 34 of which got the factory body. Half of those are thought to still exist today, and at least one of these has migrated to Japan.
Related posts:
Museum Classics: 1953 Fiat 8V Supersonic by Ghia – Fiat’s Only A-Lister, by T87
Car Show Classics: Indigestion Part 1 – The Fiats of Como Park, by Don Andreina
That is beautiful!
And here I’d been hoping to be the first one in Eugene, a battered daily driver. I guess I’ll stop looking for one now.
Fantastic car and catch. You’re quick on the draw!
Wow thats rare, 34 built, beautiful car.
Is there any truth to the tale that car and engine were both called “8V” because Fiat’s powers that be thought “V8” was a Ford trademark, or is that one of those automotive urban legends like the ’62 Mopars being inspired by misheard rumor of the Chevy II?
That’s how the story is commonly told. But I’m always a wee bit suspicious of stories like that. It would be hard to prove one way or another now.
I propose a much simpler explanation: in order to say V8, we in Italy say ‘8 cilindri a V’ or ‘8 a V’ which is normally simply abbreviated to 8V.
But I could be wrong.
And anyway: what a magnificent find! I’ve seen it once in a museum in Turin. Just unbelievable to find someone driving it in Tokyo. Just marvelous!
Many, many years ago, a Italian-speaking friend told me that “Vee Eight” is written “Vu Otto” in the peninsular idiom. But “vuotto” means empty or null, and the Fiat company did not want to have their cars derided by such a name.
Thanks AGB, I guess you’re right about Vu Otto. Still, in Italian, empty (or null) is written vuoto, with one t, and is pronounced differently from vuotto.
Anyway, however it is called, I just like it.
Wow, what a find, and just as impressive that you were able to get a few good shots of it before it passed and went wherever…
Breathtaking.
Several decades ago I found myself driving on Lincoln Boulevard in the Inner Sunset area of San Francisco behind a yellow Tucker.
That’s it. That’s my unicorn sighting story.
That’s amazing. The surviving Tuckers are well documented, and have been assigned individual numbers
based on production sequence by enthusiasts.
Few are yellow. If you can recall the particular shade, you might be able to identify the individual car. Here’s a link to the list.
http://www.tuckerclub.org/tucker-gallery/
That would have been Bev Ferreira’s car. I don’t remember which number it is.
http://www.autowire.net/1999-31.html
Bev has since passed away and the Tucker was sold around 10-15 years ago.but I do not know to whom.
Checking the Tucker site I’m pretty sure it is #1041. It was yellow when Bev owned it. After it was sold it was restored to its original black.
At first glance I thought Ghia decided to customize a ’49 Olds coupe.
This certainly has a lot in common with the Cistalia, which came out five years earlier, and not just the 50 pounds of lead that is no doubt under the paint. And Jaguar E-Type designer Malcolm Sayer must have been aware of Fiat V8, most obviously with the design of the rear third of it. The fastback version of the Jaguar is pretty much a more modern version of the same thing.
What a cool car! Beautifully styled. It will never go out of fashion. Thanks for the essay.
Fiat always giving the extremes. This model Otto Vu is a tremendus heart`s catching , possibly the only competitor at their times was the BMW 507 .
By the other hand , i guess also 1953 was a year production of the only vehicle on globe who owns the frightening number 666 . Nothing less than stout Fiat 666 a venerable yet aerodynamique cabin of a respectable big tractor truck with big engine .
We never supposed even Fiat was capable to make up such a stylish hot machine .
Why not Chrysler guys , now associated with Fiat, could be inspired on these fascinating lines before launching such erratic models of the last ten year`s Dodge & companions
Maybe they’ll make a new, plastic, all electric one on a Mazda Miata platform. I mean Fiat are all about retro.
You are right !
That’s just mental.
It reminds me of waiting in line for a half pizza outside an Italian restaurant in my working class home town during my high school lunch hour. (70p, wrapped in tinfoil and burning hot so you held it in your sleeves)
An immaculate Alvis TC21(?) had wait to turn left onto the main street (This was probably 1998).
In the back seat was an impeccably dressed and coiffured elderly lady, and she was being driven by a chauffeur in full uniform. It was like something from “Midnight in Paris”.
To me. Although that movie hadn’t been made yet.
Outstanding! What a beautiful car…
That’s an outrageous find! I had a similar once in a lifetime moment at the 2015 Chicago Auto Show. A first series road going Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale. My own photos got lost from a phone that got drove over, but here it was on the stand:
Beautiful car.
“this factory body, designed by Luigi Rapi, looks stuck in the past.”
I do not think that was the case back in 1952. I would guess it would have been received as a modern design. Yes it might not be the most modern Italian sports car but these were also the years of the fairly conservative British like Triumph TR2, the MGA was not even in production so MG still had the TF with real separate wings, the Jaguar XK120 a beaut but one could argue has lines from the 30s, etc. There was the Corvette but was that so much more modern styled?
Interesting times, that’s for sure.
I was comparing this one to the Ghia Supersonic that I had seen in Thailand. So I reiterate that by comparison to that, the Rapid design looks older.
What a find!
How do you keep catching such things? Are you a CC Magnet-o-tron or something?
Is it me or is there a bit of E Type Jaguar in that rear end and rear window?
In the summer of 1972 my former boss at a recently closed car restoration shop was selling off some of his cars. I was offered my choice of 3 cars; an Alfa 1750 roadster for $800, an Alfa 2600 for $300, or an almost identical Fiat 8V fastback for $100. I bought the Alfa 2600. Wish I could have bought all 3.
Fantastic! In terms of the cool and far-from-home factors, this is up there with the Lancia Aprilia you found in Bangkok.
If your “Half of those are thought to still exist today” means half the cars with factory body, and this is the only one in Japan, that would mean that Japan has 1.6% of the world’s people and 5.88% of the world’s surviving factory-bodied 8V’s.
Would it be possible to send Tatra87 a private message? I have a question about the classic automotive market in Japan.
Lucky man! Those serendipitous sightings of ultra-rare cars are the events that stay with one forever. Glad you had a camera to capture images that you’re unlike to ever see again.