Hiding under that cover is one of the great hidden GT cars of the swinging 1960s. With styling that came from the pen of Giorgetto Giugiaro when he was at Ghia, the Iso Rivolta S4, also known as the Rivolta Fadia, or just the Iso Fadia, is a striking looking vehicle. This one will need a full restoration, but as you will see, it might be in the right place at the right time for this to happen. The Iso is currently located in Athens, Greece, and has been listed for sale here on eBay. The owner has set a BIN of £85,000, which on current exchange rates, is around US$110,300. There is also the option available to make an offer.

The Fadia was developed and introduced by Iso to compete with cars like the Maserati Quattroporte, but development and production costs blew out enormously, and this saw the car finally go on sale with a price that was up in Rolls-Royce territory. This had an impact on sales volumes and explains why it is such an unknown. In the end, only around 192 people were willing to pay that sort of money for the car. This one appears to be a solid vehicle, although it does look like there might be some corrosion developing in a few spots around the car. The owner says that the car is actually rust-free. It has spent its life in Athens, and that climate tends to be fairly kind to cars in that respect. According to the owner, the car didn’t start its life painted in its current shade of Green. He claims that the car was originally finished in Brown, and was the car that Iso used in its promotional literature. It is now in need of complete restoration, but the listing seems to indicate that the car is actually being sold by a restoration firm and that this might be able to be arranged by them following purchase.

The feeling of elegance and luxury is so obvious inside the vehicle, with plenty of real timber, and hand-stitched leather. Once again, this is an area that is going to require a full restoration, but at least it does appear to be largely complete. The early versions of the car, at least up until the Fadia underwent an interior update in 1971, featured a timber dash. From 1971, this was changed to a leather-upholstered item, but owners felt that the upgrade was actually a retrograde step. They felt that the new dash was nowhere near as user-friendly as the dash that is fitted to this car. Apart from the presence of timber and leather, the Nardi steering wheel and power windows are nice features to have.

When we delve under the Iso, we find that it is equipped with the most desirable drive-train available in a Fadia of this era. The engine is a 327ci Corvette V8, producing 350hp. The power from this is sent to a 5-speed ZF transaxle, fitted with a limited-slip differential. The 327 was the only engine available in the Fadia at this point in time, but in keeping with so many cars that were hand-built, low-volume vehicles, there was a pretty wide choice of transmissions available. The good news here is that while things look tired and untidy under the hood, the Fadia runs and drives well, and the engine produces no smoke or weird noises. The performance was all that you would expect from a true GT car, with the Iso capable of accelerating from 0-60mph in 6.4 seconds and tearing through the ¼ mile in 14.9 seconds. With the 5-speed transaxle, the Iso could also reach a top speed of 143mph. All of those figures were very impressive back in 1967, and they still don’t look too bad today.

When it comes to the rarity stakes, the Iso Fadia is a typical, low-volume car. The fact that only 192 cars were built during a 9-year model cycle certainly qualifies it as rare. It will need to be completely restored, but once completed, it has the potential to be a fast and attractive car. Whether it is financially viable will depend on how accurate the owner has been with his description. These don’t often come onto the market, and when they do, earlier cars tend to perform better than later examples. A good one can command a price of around $150,000, although later examples will generally sell for less. If this car needs little more than a cosmetic restoration, it will still get perilously close to that sort of figure, and that’s without factoring in any unforeseen issues. Having said that, even if the whole thing does happen to venture slightly over that magic figure, the next owner will still have a pretty rare GT to drive and enjoy.