The Elaborata presents with a militant stance and conceals the one and only V-8 engine ever produced by Fiat.

The sleek 2-seat beauty debuted at the 1952 Geneva Auto Show intending to compete directly against Ferrari, Maserati, etc in the two-liter sports racing division.

It’s fascinating to note that the Fiat ‘8V’ (Otto Vu in Italian) was named as such…simply because Fiat mistakenly assumed that Ford held the trademark on “V8”which was not the case.

For homologation reasons Fiat set out to build a total of 200 Elaboratas however, only 114 of the highly advanced chassis’ were created from 1952-1954.

To stimulate interest and push sales of the high performance limited-run sports car Fiat sent 32 of the 8V chassis’ to the most prestigious bespoke coach builders such as Vignale, Ghia, Pininfarina, etc

Five of the 8V chassis’ were sent to the esteemed Italian Carrozzeria Zagato in Milan Italy. (Zagato refined his skills during the war building fighter aircraft for the Italian Air Force).

Pictured below is one of the five gorgeous bespoke 8V Zagato Sports Car.

Penned by the acclaimed designer Dante Giacosa and stylist Luigi Rapi the luxury car soon morphed into a formidable and competitive race car project.

Zagato had become famous for its lightweight-bodied racers taking wins at the 1955 Targa Florio, 1957 Mille Miglia, and many other prominent races. It also claimed the 1956 Italian Sports Car Championship division/2-liter class. These were all monumental achievements for this historic brands racing heritage.

Identifiable and famous amongst its racing competitors the Elaborata 8V was the first car to wear the iconic Zagato double-bubble roof. The legendary roof design allowed for more helmet space and also added rigidity and strength to the frame.
The 8Vs Tipo 106 chassis was one of the worlds most technically advanced and it proudly challenged its racing competitors.
The five custom cars varied per owners request but generally the power internals consisted of:

1. 1,996 CC OHV 70degree V-8 engine
2. Twin Weber 36 DCZ3 Carburetors
3. 110 HP at 6,000 RPM
4. 5-speed manual gearbox
5. Four wheel Alfin hydraulic drum brakes
6. Four wheel independent racing suspension…with additional innovative race components such as a forged crankshaft, finned aluminum sump, and stainless steel exhaust manifolds…and most of the 5 cars were finished off with Borrani wire wheels.

This wickedly cool racing coupe tops out at speeds of 120+mph quite remarkable for 1953.

This premium high cost sports car was doomed with low-number production and its demise came in 1954 when production ceased.

This coach built jewel continues to be celebrated for its fabled and celebrated racing history. Priced at well over $2million due to its rarity and pedigree it can be viewed at prestigious concours globally.

Neither sedan nor station wagon, it had a fastback profile with twin hinged “barn doors” at the rear. Exactly 999 were built, 200 of them in six-passenger configuration and the rest with three bench seats to hold nine people. A similar lineup was continued into 1942, with nearly identical production despite the war-shortened model year.

The response was such that an expanded range of five body styles was planned for 1946. In the end, only a conventional trunk-back sedan and an eight-cylinder convertible coupe were built. Just 100 long-wheelbase eight-cylinder sedans were built, the rest being six-cylinder cars on the shorter Windsor wheelbase. The new-design second-series 1949 line dropped the T&C sedan, and for 1950 the model retreated to an eight-cylinder hardtop coupe with painted insert panels. Thereafter, the name “Town and Country” graced a long succession of Chrysler steel-bodied station wagons and minivans.

Total Chrysler Town and Country sedan production for 1948 was limited with just 1,175 examples built. Most wood-bodied cars were lost long ago, and according to Town and Country authority Donald Narus, this car is one of only 41 known to survive.

Automobiles Talbot S.A. was a French automobile manufacturer based in Suresnes, Hauts de Seine, outside Paris. The Suresnes factory had been built by Alexandre Darracq for his pioneering car manufacturing business begun in 1896, which he named A. Darracq & Cie.

It was very profitable. Alexandre Darracq built racing as well as “pleasure” cars and Darracq rapidly became famous for its motor racing successes.

Darracq sold his remaining portion of his business in 1912.

New owners renamed the Darracq business Automobiles Talbot in 1922.

However, though its ordinary production cars were badged as Talbots, the new owners continued incorporating the Darracq name in Talbot-Darracq for their competition cars.

Owing to the simultaneous existence of British Talbot cars, French products when sold in Britain were badged Darracq-Talbot or Talbot-Darracq, or even simply Darracq

In 1932, after the onset of the Great Depression, Italo-British businessman Antonio Lago was appointed managing director in the hope that he might revive Automobiles Talbot’s business. Lago began this process, but the owners were unable to stave off receivership beyond the end of 1934.

Fortunately the receiver did not immediately close Automobiles Talbot, and in 1936 Antonio Lago managed to complete a management buy-out from the receiver.

For 1935, the existing range continued in production but from 1936 these were steadily replaced with cars designed by Walter Becchia, featuring transverse leaf-sprung independent suspension.

These included the 4-cylinder 2323 cc (13CV) Talbot Type T4 “Minor”, a surprise introduction at the 1937 Paris Motor Show, and the 6-cylinder 2,696 cc (15CV) Talbot “Cadette-15”, along with and the 6-cylinder 2,996 cc or 3,996 cc (17 or 23CV) Talbot “Major” and its long-wheelbase version, the Talbot “Master”: these were classified as Touring cars (voitures de tourisme).

There was also in the second half of the 1930s a range of Sporting cars (voitures de sport) which started with the Talbot “Baby-15”, mechanically the same as the “Cadette-15” but using a shorter slightly lighter chassis.

The Sporting Cars range centred on the 6-cylinder 2,996 cc or 3,996 cc (17 or 23CV) Talbot “Baby” and also included the 3,996 cc (23CV) 23 and sporting Lago-Spéciale and Lago-SS models, respectively with two and three carburettors, and corresponding increases in power and performance.

The most frequently specified body for the Lago-SS was built by Figoni et Falaschi, and featured a particularly eye-catching aerodynamic form.

Lago was an excellent engineer who developed the existing six-cylinder engine into a high-performance 4-litre one.
The sporting six-cylinder models had a great racing history.

The bodies—such as of the T150 coupé—were made by excellent coachbuilders such as Figoni et Falaschi or Saoutchik. Although the proliferation of cars types and model names that followed Lago’s acquisition of the business is at first glance bewildering, it actually involved only four standard chassis lengths as follows:
During the early years of the war Walter Becchia left Talbot to work for Citroen, but Lago was joined in 1942 by another exceptional engineer, Carlo Machetti, and from then the two of them were working on the twin camshaft 4483 cc six-cylinder unit that would lie at the heart of the 1946 Talbot T26.

After the war, the company continued to be known both for successful high-performance racing cars and for large luxurious passenger cars, with extensive sharing of chassis and engine components between the two.

Nevertheless, the period was one of economic stagnation and financial stringency.

The company had difficulty finding customers, and its finances were stretched.

In 1946, the company began production of a new engine design, based on earlier units but with a new cylinder head featuring a twin overhead camshaft.

This engine, designed under the leadership of Carlo Marchetti, was in many respects a new engine.

A 4483 cc six-cylinder in-line engine was developed for the Talbot Lago Record (1946–1952) and for the Talbot Grand Sport 26CV (1947–1954).

These cars were priced against large luxurious cars from the likes of Delahaye, Delage, Hotchkiss and Salmson.

Talbot would remain in the auto-making business for longer than any of these others, and the Talbot name had the further dubious distinction of a resurrection in the early 1980’s

The Talbot Lago Record T26 was a large car with a fiscal horsepower of 26 CV and a claimed actual power output of 170 hp, delivered to the rear wheels via a four-speed manual gear box, with the option at extra cost of a Wilson pre-selector gear box, and supporting a claimed top speed of 170 km/h (105 mph).

The car was commonly sold as a stylish four-door sedan, but a two-door cabriolet was also offered.

There were also coachbuilt specials with bodywork by traditionalist firms such as Graber.

The T26 Grand Sport (GS) was first displayed in public in October 1947 as a shortened chassis, and only 12 were made during 1948 which was the models’s first full year of production.

The car was noted for its speed. The engine which produced 170 hp in the Lago Record was adapted to provide 190 bhp (140 kW) or, later, 195 bhp (145 kW) in the GS, and a top speed of around 200 km/h (124 mph) was claimed, depending on the body that was fitted.

The car was built for either racing or luxury and benefited directly from Talbot’s successful T26C Grand Prix car. As such it was expensive, rare and helped Louis Rosier with his son to win the LeMans 24 Hour race in 1950. The GS replaced the Lago-Record chassis which was named for its remarkable top speed.

The GS was one of the world’s most powerful production cars at the time. It had several special features from the T26 Grand Prix cars, such as a 4.5-litre inline-6 aluminum cylinder head, a hollowed camshaft, multiport exhaust system and triple carburetors.

Chassis details were similar to the Grand Prix cars, but it was longer and wider. It came it two wheelbase lengths -104 and 110 inches (2,800 mm).

Almost all the Talbots sold during the late 1940s came with Talbot bodies, constructed in the manufacturer’s extensive workshops.

The T26 Grand Sport (GS) was the exception, however, and cars were delivered only as bare chassis, requiring customers to choose bespoke bodywork from a specialist coachbuilder.

The GS was a star turn in a dull world and coachbuilders such as Saoutchik, Franay, Oblin, and Figoni et Falaschi competed to trump Talbot’s own designers with elaborately elegant bodies

The Talbot Lago Baby (1948–1951) marked the return of a pre-war Talbot model name and was the third model presented by the company during the 1940s.

The car was commonly sold as a four-door sedan, but a two-door cabriolet was also offered. Its engine comprised only four cylinders, but the twin overhead camshaft with cylinder valves on both sides of the engine block was again featured: At 2690 cc the engine capacity equated to a fiscal horsepower of 15 CV, which was enough to attract the punitive levels of car tax applied by the French government to large cars.

The power output was initially 110 bhp (82 kW), which in 1949 was increased to 120 bhp (89 kW)

Although the postwar Baby sedan closely resembled the more powerful Record on a brief glance, the Baby’s 2,950 mm wheelbase was slightly shorter than the 3130 mm wheelbase of the Record, and the overall length was correspondingly 200 mm shorter, reflecting the shortened 4-cylinder engine block.

The T26C was a single-seater racing car with a box section chassis, an unsupercharged 4.5 litre straight six engine and a four speed Wilson preselector gearbox.

Chassis and gearbox were derived from the company’s 1930s racing cars and were similar to those used on their post-war road cars.

The T26C made its racing debut in the 1948 Monaco Grand Prix, finishing second in the hands of Louis Chiron. Grand Prix victories were achieved the following year with Louis Rosier winning the 1949 Belgian Grand Prix and Louis Chiron winning the 1949 French Grand Prix.

A modified two-seat version won the 1950 24 Hours of Le Mans driven by Louis Rosier and Jean-Louis Rosier. Doug Whiteford won the 1952 and 1953 Australian Grand Prix driving a Talbot-Lago T26C.

In 1951, as rumours of the company’s financial difficulties intensified, a new Ponton format body appeared for the Talbot Baby and Record.

The wheelbases were carried over from the earlier models. Although in many ways strikingly modern, the new car featured a two piece front windscreen in place of the single flat screen of its predecessor, presumably reflecting the difficulties at the time of combining the strength of a windscreen with curved glass at an acceptable price and quality.The new car’s large rear window was itself replaced by a larger three-piece “panoramic” wrap around back window as part of the car’s first face-lift, which took place in time for the 1952 Paris Motor Show.

The engine specification of the four-cylinder unit was unchanged as was the claimed performance even though the new body was some 100 kg heavier than the old.

A new development with the Ponton-bodied cars body was the availability of the larger six-cylinder unit from the Talbot Record in the top-of-the-line Talbot Baby, which in this form was called the Talbot Baby/6 Luxe, and had the slightly longer wheel-base and overall length enforced by the greater length of the six-cylinder engine.

1948 Talbot-Lago Grand Sport Figoni Fastback Coupé, built for France’s Zipper King.

This particular one was bodied by Figoni et Falaschi, a pair of Italian partners who started a coachbuilding concern in Paris in 1935. They were known for extravagant, flamboyant, and flowing designs, as you can tell from this example.

This one was built for Monsieur Fayolle, a man who made his money selling zippers, and you can see a hint of that in the nose of the car, those chrome strips above the cyclopean headlight that are meant to suggest a zipper.

Talbot-Lago updated their pre-war cars after WWII, getting back into the business of making fast, expensive racing and sports cars. These cars used a 4.5-liter straight-six and, like a number of manufacturers of that era and before, the cars had bodies made by coachbuilders, so there’s a wide variety of looks for the 29 chassis Talbot-Lago delivered.