1946 Fiat 1100 C Spider

Born in Turin, Italy, in 1913, Pietro Frua was hired as draftsman in 1930 while still a teenager by Stabilimenti Farina. By the age of 22 he was named director of styling. He left to open his own studio in 1938. Despite a slow start, he purchased a heavily damaged factory at the close of WWII with the intention of designing and building cars of his own design. For his 'calling card,' he chose a 4-cylinder Fiat 1100C chassis to cloth with his coachwork to have the widest possible appeal for the Italian concours events in 1947. This is that car.

The first Fiat 508 C, introduced in 1937, was a small family saloon powered by a 1,089cc 4-cylinder overhead-valve engine. Using that rather diminutive prewar chassis, this unique little Fiat 1100 C Barchetta was the first car designed and built by Pietro Frua for his Carrozzeria Frua. It had its world premiere at the 1947 Concorso di Como Coppa Villa d'Este and, after winning second in class, was described in glowing terms in contemporary press reports. For the next three years, the car passed among a series of owners in Turin, but in 1950 it was sold to a Mr. Monti in Pavia, a town south of Milan, who retained the one-off sports car for the next 33 years. Then, after several more Italian owners, its current custodian entered it in the Mille Miglia Storica in 2016, just prior to its restoration back to its original color. He returned with the car to the Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este in 2017, 70 years after making its concours debut.

The futuristic front-end styling of this Fiat, with its high ridge along the center hood influenced Scaglione, one of the most revered designers in automotive history, in his creation of the Arnolt-Bristol Bolide in 1954. Equally, the rear decklid fins on this Frua-bodied Fiat are said to be the inspiration for the world-acclaimed BAT (Berlina Aerodinamica Technica) cars, designed by Scaglione in 1953, 1954 and 1955. The popularity of the FIAT helped Frua acquire design contracts with other automakers, including Maserati.