Lot 111: 1963 Ghia GT

Founded in 1915, in its day Carrozzeria Ghia was one of the most inventive and respected of Turin's independent coachbuilding companies. The company enjoyed a resurgence of fortune during the 1950s thanks to the entrepreneurial activities of its manager Luigi Segre, who forged strong links with Chrysler in Detroit, for whom Ghia built a world-renowned series of "dream cars". Ghia also built the Lincoln Futura for Ford, which achieved immortality when customiser George Barris converted it into the TV "Batmobile". Ghia was ambitious to become a series producer in the manner of other Torinese coachbuilders like Pininfarina and Bertone, so in 1960 Luigi Segre created the OSI company in conjunction with typewriter manufacturer Olivetti, who provided the finance and a factory building across the street from the Ghia coachworks, where production of the Fiat 2300S coupe and the Innocenti Spider 950 began. However, in 1963 44-year-old Segre died following an operation and was replaced by ex-racing driver and Ford Italiana executive Gino Rovere. OSI returned to Olivetti ownership and its original function as a stamping plant. It was during this period that Ghia began production of another specially-bodied Fiat-based car, the fastback Coggiola-styled Ghia 1500GT which was built at a peak rate of four units a day in Ghia's bodyshop in the Via Agostino di Montefeltro. Using the powertrain of the Fiat 1500, the Ghia 1500GT had a sheet steel box-section and tubular frame with the engine set further back than in the standard car; the wheelbase was shorter than standard, too. But Rovere was a sick man, and in 1964 he too died, and the firm was taken over more or less as a hobby by Leonidas Ramadas Trujillo, son of the recently deposed dictator of the Caribbean republic of Domenica. While production of the Ghia 1500GT continued for a couple of years, this was, noted an internal history of Ghia "the period of the most frantic activity but at the same time of least results". Then Alejandro de Tomaso took control, paving the way for acquisition by Ford. On offer here today is perhaps the finest Ghia 1500 GT in existence. It was given by a Veneto based industrialist to his wife as a present in 1963. She has owned the car from new and it has only covered a tiny mileage and has always remaining garaged. This explains its pristine 'as delivered' condition and would be a prime contender for the many councours d'elegance events such as that at The Villa D'Este where an example of a Ghia 1500 GT appeared last year.