1968 Serenissima Ghia GT

All images: 2019 © Christian Martin courtesy of Artcurial

The Serenissima Ghia GT is a one-off design penned by the great Tom Tjaarda and conceived by Count Giovanni Volpi di Misurata and Alejandro de Tomaso. The truth is that de Tomaso had just bought the storied Italian coachbuilder Ghia in 1967, and he wanted the Count to leverage the name of his racing team Serenissima into sales of a high-end sports car.

Giovanni Volpi had inherited an expansive estate and a noble title from his father. Still, his tastes were more inclined toward motor racing than polo, so he established his racing team – Scuderia Serenissima.

The Count bought his race cars from Enzo Ferrari, with whom he had an excellent relationship until the now infamous “Palace Revolt” when a group of top engineers left the company abruptly after an argument with the boss.

Some of these former Ferrari engineers established a new company, Automobili Turismo e Sport (ATS), to build racing cars, and the Count supported them. When Enzo learned of this, he flat out refused to sell him any new race cars, this left the Count in a difficult position, and it directly led to the creation of the car you see here.

At first glance, the Serenissima Ghia GT looks like something from the factory of De Tomaso; this should be no surprise as it was developed by Ghia shortly after Giorgetto Giugiaro had designed the De Tomaso Mangusta.

American car designer Tom Tjaarda was assigned the project to design the Serenissima Ghia GT, he took some of the Ghia design languages of the Mangusta when creating the new car, and a few years later, he would design the much loved De Tomaso Pantera. All three of these cars share an apparent familial similarity, and many initially assume that the Serenissima Ghia GT is an unknown De Tomaso prototype.

“I was friends with De Tomaso, who owned Ghia (…) De Tomaso was an amazing character, very dynamic and full of life. We built a well-designed coupé with him, which had incredible suspension. It went round corners completely flat.” – Count Giovanni Volpi di Misurata.

The team at Ghia developed the new Serenissima as a concept car for the Ghia stand at the Turin Motor Show in 1968; it wasn’t just a rolling shell. However, this fully functioning prototype could have been put into production with minimal effort.

The car was initially fitted with a Massimino 3.5 liter V8 engine, but this was replaced relatively quickly with an Alf Francis M-167 V8 engine with the same capacity. This new engine features twin overhead cams per bank, three valves per cylinder (two intakes and one exhaust), dry sump lubrication, four Weber 40 DCN14 carburetors, and a power output of 320 bhp at 7,500 rpm. Power is sent to the rear wheels through a five-speed Serenissima (Francis) gearbox and a limited-slip differential.

The interior of the Serenissima is instead well appointed for a concept car; it has twin bucket seats, a center console with an array of switches and buttons, a plethora of gauges in the dashboard, a radio, a gated shifter, and what appears to be air conditioning.

The Serenissima is a fascinating historical what-if, it’s a car that could have been put into production but wasn’t, and there’s little doubt it would have proven just as popular as the Pantera if it had been. It’s survived in original condition to the modern day but now requires a re-commissioning before any driving is attempted.

Source: Artcurial; Silodrome