In addition to competing with cars built by other manufacturers, Count Giovanni Volpi sought to make his own automobiles, and the result was a small number of racing and road cars bearing the Serenissima name. This machine, the Serenissima GT, was the last of these and created in concert with Count Volpi’s friend Alejandro DeTomaso, whose experience and ownership of Ghia provided the tools and contacts to engineer and build it.
Under the skin, the Serenissima GT was extremely contemporary, with a backbone chassis that had independent suspension and disc brakes at all four corners. The powertrain was equally sophisticated, with an engine designed in-house by Alberto Massimino. It was a mid-mounted 3.5-liter DOHC V8 derived from Serenissima’s Formula 1 engine and connected to a proprietary 5-speed transaxle with a limited-slip differential.
Count Volpi never put the GT into production, but he did retain this example, the single prototype, for over 50 years, finally selling it to its current owner in 2019. At that time, it had not run for many years but has since been recommissioned to driving condition. Today, the consignor reports that it still wears the same orange paint with which it was displayed in Geneva and New York in 1969.
This remarkable, unrestored automobile comes with a pair of spare engine blocks. It is a fascinating piece of automotive history — the brainchild of one of the most colorful characters of 1960s motor racing.
(Introductory description courtesy of Gooding & Company.)
