Will Owen's Dream Car

["John Hertzman" <johnhertzman@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Will Owen, seconding my admiration for the 6C 3000 CM backbone chassis, takes
it a big step further, adding "I've said this before and I'll say it again: if
only, if only, if ONLY the connection between the engine and the transaxle on
the 116 cars had been a rigid one, what is merely a stunningly good car to
drive under most circumstances would have been just about the best ever under
any circumstances."

That rigid connection between the engine and transaxle was at the core of the
stillborn tipo 160 Grand Prix car, the contemplated successor to the 159. It
had a short steel backbone connecting the flat twelve engine with the rear
transaxle gearbox ("tipo di telaio: tubo centrale in lamiera collegante il
motore e il cambio-ponte") and concentric driveshafts (if I am reading the
drawings correctly) with the outer (still with one giubo) enclosing an inner
one to the front differential of the four-wheel-drive system. No other framing
members; the front suspension mounted directly to the engine. Three
leading-shoe drum brakes, twelve carburettors feeding the naturally-aspirated
2.5 liter engine, 285 hp at 10,000 rpm, driver seated behind the transaxle
slingshot-dragster style, pretty heady stuff for the early fifties.

Will was talking about a road-car, of course, and ended with "I'll take mine
with a copy of the plain-jane 3-liter coupe body, please. Contributions
gratefully accepted." The logical model for an appropriate coupe variant of a
parallel road car design would have been something like the Sportiva. Both the
Sportiva and the 160 GP were aborted to concentrate the company resources on
the forthcoming Giulietta. Would have been nice if they could have managed all
three.

John H.
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