Italian Classic (Auto Review Album Number 213)

Author: Rod Ward

This publication pays tribute to the irrepressible creative urge of Italian engineers, designers and entrepreneurs in the early 20th century. Their enthusiasm, in the face of financial or technical obstacles, resulted in a fascinating selection of car designs, featured in these pages. Some of the car marques described here resulted from the efforts of large industrial concerns to get into motor vehicle production, but their financial muscle was not always enough to guarantee success.

Most of the makers described here were based in the famous Turin-Milan-Genoa industrial triangle. Ceirano, Diatto and Chiribiri were based in Turin (capital of Piedmont), Ansaldo had its power base in the port of Genoa, and Züst was located in Milan. Only Brescia is beyond the triangle; that is where Brixia-Zust and its successor OM were based. These marques are less familiar outside Italy, but they deserve to be better-known. Settle in for some fascinating tales. One of our contributors wished us good luck in disentangling the

stories of the many car marques founded by the Ceirano family. We hope that a little clarity has been brought to that complex and fascinating subject. There is one non-Italian marque described here; Clément-Bayard of France was chosen by Diatto as the design with which to begin car manufacture. Adolphe Clément was a director and major shareholder in the Diatto-Clément concern, so his story had to be told here as well.