The ultimate italian coachbuilder site
The ultimate italian coachbuilder site
Vignale offered various bodies for the Fiat 8V: five coupes, one spider and one coupe Corsa were built. As one of the last models, the aggressive looking 8V ‘Demon Rouge’ was presented in 1954, however the chassis is dated 1952.
The Fiat 8V Demon Rouge: An extremely unique and distinctive design by Giovanni Michelotti, built by Vignale and based on the famous Fiat 8V. Michelotti demonstrated his creativity and inventiveness with this Démon Rouge (red devil) at the Turin motor show in 1955. The semi-circular, vertical rear window under the extended roofline is one of the most striking details. It was an aerodynamic trick intended to keep the rear window clean and dry during heavy rainfall. Something similar would later be applied to the Ford Anglia and the Citroën Ami. The roof of the Fiat 8V Demon Rouge itself is largely made of Plexiglas, to give the impression of an open car. The door handles are ingeniously incorporated into the rear pillars. The car doesn’t have any bumpers and the headlights are framed by the grille. In 1955 the design won the first prize in the ‘Coppa Campione d’Italia’ Concours d’Elegance. Nearly fifty years later, in 2004, the Fiat 8V Demon Rouge won the ‘Best of Show’ prize at the Concours d’Elegance at palace Het Loo in Apeldoorn, the most prestigious motorcar event in the Netherlands. The Fiat 8V – ‘Otto Vu’ in Italian – is the only eight-cylinder built by Fiat. The sports car was launched in 1952 in order to participate in the Mille Miglia. It was very expensive: in America it cost $ 6,000, almost twice as much as a Jaguar XK120. Exactly 114 8V’s were built, some with special Zagato, Ghia and Vignale coachwork.
The story of Carrozzeria Vignale represents one of the many somewhat forgotten success stories born against the backdrop of an Italy that was torn apart by the Second World War and which, starting from the end of the 1950s, was able to recover enough to know a real miracle. economical just a few years later.
In March 1952, Fiat surprised the world at the Geneva Motor Show with the Fiat 8V. A two-seater sports car that was also designed as a racing car. What was surprising was that Fiat had not shown any interest in re-entering the racing scene up to this point.
“Soffio di Satana” is the moniker coined by Eng. Anderloni, the founder of Carrozzeria Touring Superleggera, for a model of the Alfa Romeo 6C 2300 Turismo. Anderloni meticulously designed and crafted this model with a distinctive, aerodynamic, and exquisitely elegant style. During that era, it was a trend to assign demonic names to exceptionally beautiful, aggressive, and captivating cars, evoking the allure of speed and the mythical notion of the demon.
