Intermeccanica Vehicle History:

[Brock Samson]

 

I was only vauguly aware of Intermeccania from the 1965 Apollo GT. - because there was one for sale for many years in the Road & Track Classifieds, should any of you remember, when it was possible to buy ex-race Ferraris there for $5,000 -$10,000, but I digress...
but i wasn't familier with their other automobiles till i saw this pic and decided to do some googlein...

 

  "the Apollo GT, a sports-car based on Buick mechanicals (including a V8 powerplant), was developed for a U.S. company called International Motor Cars. The body was designed by the Italian Franco Scaglione from sketches made by Ron Plescia. The San Francisco firm produced 90 in coupe form and 11 in convertible form between 1961 and 1965, uphostered in leather and equipped with, among other things, Borrani wire wheels. The Apollo 2+2 protoype then followed, being judged 'best of show' at the New York Autoshow, a second copy being later built"


BTW: the author of the above article - Gordon Martin, was a friend of mine who took me to my first Formula 5000 and motorcycle races at Sears Pointraceway  in 1970,.. and in recent years allowed me to ride along and drive many of the sports cars he tested for the Chronicle, among them the ZR-1 Corvette, Acura NSX, Firebird Firehawk and several others.
sadly he passed away a few years ago.

anyway...





the photo that led me to search the web and create this post.



the griffith GT...

sketchs.



11 of these Ford 429 Powered bad Boys were built and sold all in the New York Area..




ad from R&T


the Torino Spyder: yum yum yum! 





renamed the Itiala when ford took the torino name:


the indira 2+2


bob, this one is for you...








bitter sketch..






So for the past 30 years after moving from Turin Italy and at first to Riverside Ca. 1981 it's based in Vancouver Canada as Intermeccanica International Inc. and has been building a wide variety of

Cobra,


Porsche, and older classic rebodies, like the Squire,

Jag 120,

SS 100  and such...

          Kubelwagen
they also did the Fitch Phoenix which carried it's spare tire in the sides of the car like the older classic cars from the post WW-I era.



a one off prototype i only include it here because it's such a novel design, done on contract.

Racing driver John Fitch, who after retirement from the track built modified "Sprint" versions of the Corvair with handling enhancements and four-carb engines, envisioned a more sophisticated car. The Phoenix, also Corvair-based but with special body penned by Coby Whitmore and built in Italy by Frank Reisner's Costruzione Automobili Intermeccanica, featured real sidemounts, gentle blisters on the front fenders but with real tires under removable covers. The concept was intended to house different size spares, as the Phoenix was to have narrower tires on the front than on the rear. In the end, it didn't, and production never started because Federal motor vehicle standards inconveniently intervened.

The Phoenix was built in 1966, and I believe it to be the last American car with sidemounts.

For More Info- links:
http://www.italiareproductions.com/entrance.htm
http://www.intermeccanica.org/
the designer - virtually unknown. Franko Scaglione
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco_Scaglione

[Kevin68N71]

I love Intermeccanica stuff!

The bad guy's car in The Love Bug was an Apollo GT...