1924 Isotta Fraschini Tipo 8 Tourer

The Isotta Fraschini automobile bears the name of its founders, Cesare Isotta, and Vincenzo, Oreste and Antonio Fraschini. Before the Milanese friends and brothers founded Automobili Isotta, Fraschini & Company in 1900, they assembled Renaults.

They were among the early pioneers of the overhead camshaft engine, with an engine designed by Giustino Cattaneo. Isotta Fraschini introduced the Tipo 8, the first production automobile to be powered by a straight-eight engine, at the Paris Salon in 1919 and began delivering them to customers in 1920.

Isotta Fraschini also marketed deluxe limousines to the new American aristocracy. Early film stars Clara Bow and Rudolph Valentino drove Isotta Fraschinis.

Isotta Fraschini was a pioneer of eight-cylinder engines, offering the world's first mass-production, inline, eight-cylinder engine in 1912. This dedication to new technology and luxury appointments made the brand popular in the United States, where among foreign brands only Rolls-Royce outsold them for a time. Isottas were also wildly expensive, a rolling chassis retailed for a then-stratospheric $10,000 each by the mid-1920s.

Seriously affected by the economic crisis of the 1930s and by the disruptions of World War II, Isotta Fraschini stopped manufacturing automobiles in 1949.

It is believed that approximately twenty surviving complete Tipo 8 Isottas of all body styles remain in existence. The original owner of this chassis (number 489) is not known. In the 1970 book The Custom Body Era, Hugo Rfau recorded many of his recollections while working alongside Ray Dietrich, Frank Pease, Ralph Roberts, and Roland Stickney as a young office assistant/draftsman at the coachbuilding firm of LeBaron. Pfau mentions Mr. George Piperno, an enthusiast of Isotta and LeBaron, who had 'five or six with LeBaron bodies.' Four of Piperno's Isotta Fraschini's are known, of which three survived World War II. Further evidence which suggests this car may have been owned by Piperno is a rendering by a LeBaron colleague (Mr. Roland Stickney) of Pfau. The image is unmistakably this car, along with his firsthand identification of this car as the first of several LeBaron-bodied Isottas built for Piperno.

Mr. William Pollock purchased this car at some point after World War II. The car remained in the Pollock Collection from 1954 to 1961, as is noted in classic car registers. By 1968, the car was listed as being with Alfred N. Rodway, of Cleveland, Ohio, who kept in his museum, Rodway's Classic Era. It is believed that Rodway performed a cosmetic restoration at that time, finishing the car in the two-tone color scheme of black and red to highlight the signature LeBaron 'spade' that sweeps down the length of the hood. At that time, several pieces of the interior were reupholstered.

In 1970, Mr. Walter Weimer of Washington, Pennsylvania became the car's next caretaker. He owned it for five years before selling it to LaVerne Johnson, of Gregory, Michigan. The Johnson family would retain the car for the better part of four decades. In 2000, they commissioned Clark-Patton Inc., of Plymouth, Michigan, to perform a mechanical restoration, which reportedly included an engine rebuild. Further work was later performed by Brian Joseph, which included the relining of the clutch's friction linings, replacing the transmission pilot bearing, cleaning the clutch splines, adjusting the clutch, inspecting the brakes, and installing new tires.