1964 ASA Mille Berlinetta

The ASA Mille was the first car not made by Ferrari to have a Ferrari engine. The prototype was built in 1958 and was road tested by Enzo Ferrari, who used it as his day-to-day car for a year. With a four-cylinder twin-cam engine of 850 cc, it was nicknamed the Ferrarina. Ferrari, however, had no intention of putting it into production himself because his factory had no spare capacity. He therefore looked about for a company which would take on the design, and finally entered an agreement with Niccolo de Nora, a wealthy industrialist.

In 1962 de Nora established a new company called Autocostruzioni Societa per Azioni whose staff included the racing drivers, Lorenzo Bandini and Giancarlo Baghetti and whose technical adviser was Giotto Bizzarrini, who had been chiefly responsible for the immortal 250 GTO.

When production began in 1962, the engine had been enlarged to 1,032 cc and was producing 84 bhp. This was the same, size for size, as the...