The ultimate italian coachbuilder site
The ultimate italian coachbuilder site
The Fiat 1100 Victoria by Bertone.
The Fiat 1100 Victoria: Among the various cars created by Bertone on the Fiat 1100 chassis was the two-door Victoria saloon of unusual line and destined to probe the taste of the custom-built car clientele, little receptive in Italy to the four seat, two door saloon. At the end of the Thirties, the front end of some special bodies by Bertone demonstrated a new configuration, abandoning the large nosed radiator grill with superimposed horizontal contours to take on a divided air intake on the two sides of the V, following a design inspired by the American Buick of 1939. That kind of front end appeared on the Fiat 1100 cabriolet that won first prize in the 1939 Concours d’Elégance in Turin and on the Lancia Aprilia of the same year, a car that also retained the overall styling.
An elegant convertible, built in 1949 on the popular Fiat 1100 B chassis by Stabilimenti Farina in very few speciments, remains the emblem of this extraordinary coachbuilding of cars in the early 1950s. The resemblance to Ferrari’s 166 Inter is surprising, which let to controversy between Giovanni Farina and Enzo Ferrari.
