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The Fiat 8V Supersonic's design features a steeply raked, long windshield, a curved nose, and a low, glassy greenhouse.
Once in a while, an automaker or two or a slew of them creates something to give us an idea of what automobiles will look like in the future. The Ghia-designed Fiat 8V Supersonic was one of such creations in the 1950s. Founded in Turin, Italy, in 1916 and named after one of its founders Giacinto Ghia, Carrozzeria Ghia is an Italian firm specializing in automobile design and coach building.
Remember the 1955 Volkswagen Karmann-Ghia and the Volvo P1800? Ghia has built bodies for such big names, including Alfa Romeo, Ford, Ferrari, Jaguar, Chrysler, and Fiat. Giacinto Ghia was no longer alive when the company made Supersonic, featuring a ‘jet age’ bodywork on the 2.0-liter V8-powered Fiat 8V “Otto Vu” chassis.
It placed the ‘8’ before the ‘V’ to avoid copyright infringement against Ford. Notably, Ford would later buy the design house in 1970 and began using the ‘Ghia’ name on its cars focused on the European market via Ford Europe. With just 114 examples built in its two years of production, the Fiat 8V has a rare classic quality to it, but even rarer is the Ghia-designed Supersonic coupe with just eight examples built.
Related: 10 Things Everyone Forgot About Fiat And Its Cars
With the sedan project shelved, the Italian automaker decided to find its narrow-vee engine a new home in a coupe instead. Propelled by the engine originally built for the scrapped luxury sedan, the Fiat 8V could make a humble 105 horsepower, allowing it to denominate its race class. But that didn’t stop the automaker from pulling the model after just two years and 114 units produced.
It wasn’t enough to find success on the racetracks; the 8V had to be profitable too, which it wasn’t. As its name vaguely suggests, the Fiat 8V was a V8-powered sports car unveiled at the 1952 Geneva Motor Show and produced between that year and 1954. Except for the differential, the 8V didn't share any parts with other Fiat models.
Different coach builders fashioned the body, and they include Carrozzeria Zagato who made 30 examples labeled ‘Elaborata Zagato, Vignale, Ghia, and of course, Fiat’s own Special Bodies Department (Dipartimento Carrozzerie Derivate e Speciali). The 8Vs were available as mostly coupes and a few cabriolets.
A 1,996 cc V8 mill featuring two twin-choke Weber 36 DCF 3 carburetors and an 8.5:1 compression ratio produces the initial 105 horsepower in the Fiat 8V. Technically, it could make 104 horsepower at 5,600 rpm and a top speed of 118 mph. The engine was later updated to an 8.75:1 compression ratio with varied camshaft timing to make 113 horsepower at 6,000 rpm. A subsequent revision of the fuel system and camshaft timing brought the maximum power output to 125 horsepower at 6,600 rpm.
Type 104.000 Fiat 8V had the first iteration, while the updated model came with the Type 104.006. A 4-speed manual transmission delivered power to the rear wheels, supported by independent suspension borrowed from the Fiat 1100 small family car. It also had drum brakes on all four wheels. Getting withdrawn from production didn't stop Otto Vu from winning the Italian yearly GT championship successively until 1959.
Related: These Are The Coolest Fiats Ever Made
Why did a 1952 issue of Road & Track describe the Fiat 8V as “the biggest surprise of the year?” Perhaps because this was the one and only V8 Fiat, especially at a time the marque was synonymous with small engine underpowered ‘workaday’ cars like the 569 cc Fiat Topolino or the 500 Bambino. It was like the Italian marque suddenly woke up to the fact that they could actually make cars for the US market dominated by 6-cylinders and V8s like the Fords. After all, they've been building cars there since the 1900s.
Actually, Fiat erroneously believed Ford had a copyright of the V8 name because of how popular the American marque’s flathead V8 was in America. But such powerplant would only cater to the rich in post-war Italy. Fiat first thought of venturing into the US market with a V6 Berlina sedan, switched up to a V8, before scrapping the whole luxury sedan thing before they got too deep in the hole. They salvaged what they could. They’d later develop the new Otto Vu on the Type 104 V8 engine and Type 106 chassis salvaged from the failed sedan project.
In that period, small, agile sports cars were gaining sweet traction in the US. Fiat must have thought that if Italian makers like Maserati and Alfa Romeo could make it in America, it could even do one better. And so, Fiat's decision-makers tasked Fabio Luigi Rapo – Fiat’s Head of Design – to come up with a V8-powered 2-seat Berlinetta coupe.
Fabio had a neat plan. The semi-monocoque chassis from the failed sedan and aluminum body panels would not only improve the vehicle’s lightweight (2,198 lbs curb weight) but also allow the country’s teeming coachbuilding talents to make custom bodies on the Type 106 chassis comprising a central floor pan welded to a tubular steel frame, as opposed to unibody construction.
Thus, Italian designers like Zagato and Ghia got rolling chassis of the Otto Vu, but the most famous of such freelance creations was definitely the “Jet Age” Supersonic, the handiwork of Giovanni Savonuzzi of Ghia. They were the most popular Fiat Otto Vus exported to the USA.
Such copy with chassis #000049 believed to have got imported into the country by Chrysler chairman K.T. Keller, who then sold it to powerboat racer Lou Fageol, fetched a whopping $2 million and some change at a recent RM Sotheby’s Monterey auction. Notably, Ghia replicated the Fiat Supersonic’s Jet Age bodywork on a few Jaguar XK120 and Aston Martin vehicles.
Philip Uwaoma, this bearded black male from Nigeria, is fast approaching two million words in articles published on various websites, including toylist.com, rehabaid.com, and autoquarterly.com. After not getting credit for his work on Auto Quarterly, Philip is now convinced that ghostwriting sucks. He has no dog, no wife- yet- and he loves Rolls Royce a little too much.