Tommy H found the story of this amazing Tipo 8A on the Road & Track website and shared it with us. Some say this is the greatest barn find ever, but the Tucker the same fellow found last year was pretty great as well. This Isotta Fraschini has survived ninety years in amazing condition and is said to be the first Isotta Fraschini Tipo 8A built. It was not just left to gather dust, though, but was maintained while in storage. The picture above is exactly as this car was found. It was ordered but apparently was never delivered. Like other luxury cars of the day were sold as a bare chassis with the buyer choosing the coach builder. This body on this car was created by two separate coachbuilders. After the buyer didn’t take delivery, the factory used it to train a few drivers and then stored the car. Luckily it wasn’t stored at the factory because the factory was destroyed in World War II.
The is the only picture provided of the interior, but what is shown is beautiful.
This is the engine in another Tipo 8A. The engine was very advanced for its time with some unique features. It was a straight eight overhead valve engine of over 7 liters with up to 160 horsepower. The twin carburetors had individual manifolds. Isotta Fraschini was well known for its aircraft engines and that would account for their capability in designing automobile engines. The V.6, for example, was used in World War l and had several unique features that were later used in theTipo 8A engine. They continued building cars until 1949 and then began building large marine engines with up to 3,600 horsepower.
It was purchased by Mark Lieberman of Nostalgic Motors and shipped to the US. There were thought to be only 47 surviving but he apparently found number 48. Perhaps we’ll see this magnificent Isotta Fraschini at Pebble Beach, or at least on TV! It’s definitely incredible, but is it really the greatest barn find ever?
Not used in Italy for 90 years……oh ok.
I’d prefer a superbird
This is the car that chauffeur Max drove Norma Desmond around in the1950 movie “Sunset Boulevard.”
Francisco, I hope you are correct because I tried googling a few times about that car but came up with very little except that it might have been destroyed.
In the dialogue of that movie it said something like it cost $20 thousand before putting a body on it. Possibly someone will remember the exact words.
Also, in the movie the rear was upholstered in leopard skin.
I am happy that it still exists. Let’s hope someone finds the car that apparently went over a cliff in a Humphrey Bogart movie. It appeared to be the same as that featured here except the rear passenger section was much higher and Humphrey explained that it was owned by a bull-fighter and it was made tall so that he could stand up and bow to the crowds as he drove by!
“We don’t need two cars, we have a car. Not one of those cheap new things made of chromium and spit, an Isotta-Fraschini. Have you ever heard of Isotta-Fraschini? All handmade. Costs me $28,000.”
—Norma Desmond
Sorry, Peter. I meant to say this is like the car from the movie. Sorry I mislead you. You got me thinking though. I wonder what did happen to the car that Eric Von Stroheim and Gloria Swanson rode around in. If I recall, Cecil B. DeMille wanted to use it as a movie prop.
Such beauty. Wish cars were still beautiful.
That Tucker was not “found” in a barn, many knew that the owner had it, the owner knew what he had as well. He was approached for the movie as well.
The Ferrari 250 GTO in the field in Ohio was one of the best finds in recent years although the owner at the time, I believe, had found the car years before advertised as a Ferrari coupe for sale by a high school in a Texas newspaper.
My uncle restored a 1925 tipo 8a when I was a kid. I got to watch all of the stages of the build and play on it too! It came to him from Austin Clark Jr. As a frame and motor and radiator ….he made the wood body and covered it in green leather with leather fenders . It sold to an IF collector movie star singer from the 40s. Who Later covered it in a different body . I learned so much from my uncle. They were the Italian Rolls but much better. The best cars ever made in my eye.
Closing out the subject on the IF, chassis #655 was bodied by Cesare Sala as a Landaulet Limousine and was in the collection of Isotta Fraschini Motori Breda s.p.a. as the company changed from cars to other war machines, and engines over the years. Little is known when it was restored, by who, or it’s Pre-war history. It sold in Arizona in 2017 for $434,500.
This morning I remembered that Sergio Franchi was who bought the car from my uncle in the early seventies. I only remember the rebody was white and Stewart Warner made my uncle a dashboard with replica instruments and Isotta Fraschini silk screened on them. He also put Lincoln 8 way seat mechanism for the driver and a hidden stereo because he drove it and toured in it….the Glidden Tour was one of them.
They don’t drive them like they used to…..