This car, Lot 153063, sold for $232,500, including buyer’s premium, on Bring a Trailer’s online auction, on July 2, 2024.
In comparison with the millions of lines of code, precision robots and legions of engineers required to create a sports car today, the small automakers that flourished in Italy’s Po Valley in the 1960s seem positively quaint by comparison. At that time, it was possible for energetic entrepreneurs to create their own car company by combining the tremendous technical and manufacturing resources available in the region with inexpensive parts and powertrains from America.
Renzo Rivolta, Giotto Bizzarrini and Alejandro de Tomaso were amongst the best known, yet one of their lesser-known compatriots, Frank Reisner, stands apart based on his pure indefatigability.
An extended vacation
Hungarian-born Reisner left a war-ravaged Europe for a better life in Canada, and later moved to America for an engineering education. He returned to Europe in 1958, ostensibly to buy a used Porsche with his Czech-born wife Paula. Enthused by the opportunities available in the Torino area, the Reisners instead founded a small company, Intermeccanica, to develop speed equipment that they exported to eager Americans from the back pages of Road & Track.
A Formula Junior racer came next, followed by the agile Puch 500-powered Imp in 1961. By then they were in the car business, eventually creating a menagerie that included the Buick-powered Apollo GT; a short run of wild, Ford 429-powered Murena GT shooting brakes; a one-off Corvair-powered targa-roofed coupe for racer John Fitch; the star-crossed, Opel-based Indra; and even Mustang-based wagons — among others. (Intermeccanica’s fascinating history is well documented in Intermeccanica: The Story of the Prancing Bull by Andrew McCredie and Paula Reisner.)
As interesting as those products may have been, the sharp-edged, perfectly proportioned sports coupe and convertible that would be variously known as the Griffith 600, Omega, Torino and Italia would become Intermeccanica’s most successful Italian-built product, with about 400 units produced. Its parameters were originally established between Reisner, Long Island Ford dealer Jack Griffith, ex-Lotus and BRM engineer John Crosthwaite, SCM’s own Robert Cumberford, and none other than Griffith’s development driver, Mark Donohue. The keystone, in every sense, was Ford’s miraculously light small-block V8 which, when compared to the pure-bred Italians, offered advantages in cost, performance and reliability.
Cash is king
Intermeccanica’s Griffith phase didn’t last long; cash-flow problems forced a switch to Chrysler’s bulkier 273-ci V8. That required a fundamental redesign of the chassis which, according to Mike Mooney’s informative Griffith history, created a “nightmare of mismatched combinations.” Balance was restored with a return to Ford power under new investors, but Reisner’s plans were constantly roiled by a succession of backers whose enthusiasm and resources would eventually flag, leaving him scrambling to find alternatives. Along the way, the Italia’s highly attractive formula didn’t change much. Styling updates included split bumpers framing a mesh grille that replaced the original one-piece design (strengthening a similarity to a certain sports car made in Modena) and revised suspension, while the engine was upgraded from the Ford 289 and 302 to the 351.
Prices for Italias have consistently been over $100,000 for stronger examples, with one selling on Bring a Trailer for $212,000 in 2022. Scarcity and novelty may account for some of that, yet it’s notable given the artisanal nature of the car — and the fact that today, probably no two cars are alike. According to one source, Italias were built with nearly 300 outsourced parts, which, together with limited aftermarket support, means that any restoration involves a fair amount of fabrication. Buying someone else’s effort, even at the higher end, will seem cheap by comparison.
Attention to detail
Such was the case with our subject car, which first came on our radar when it “sold” for an impressive $181,500 at RM’s 2015 Amelia Island sale (SCM# 264422). We later reported that a title issue unwound that sale (perhaps explaining a VIN format that doesn’t match our comps). A subsequent attempt the following year with RM Sotheby’s in Arizona sold the car for just $121,000 (SCM# 270806) — an apparent bargain considering the costs expended in its recommissioning.
In addition to its impressive condition, what likely sweetened the appeal of this example in its recent record-breaking Bring a Trailer online auction sale at $232,500 was a typically excellent presentation by 911r, one of BaT’s most prolific sellers.
Italo-American hybrids from the likes of DeTomaso, Iso and Intermeccanica have always occupied a certain netherworld: too sophisticated to be classed among more-common sports cars, yet often dismissed by Italian purists for their humble iron-block V8s and somewhat derivative styling. The fact that Italias are now beginning to trade in the $200,000 range suggests some overdue recognition of a beautiful GT, as well as potential updraft for well-restored and well-presented examples.. ♦
