Another illustrious recipient of Fiat’s glorious two litre 8V engine, the 208S came from SIATA (Società Italiana Applicazioni Trasformazioni Automobilistiche), a company that had begun in 1926 producing speed equipment for Fiat automobiles. After the war, Siata was producing its own cars including the 208S which was introduced in 1953.

The 208S was available in both open and closed versions, it was used sophisticated engineering such as independent suspension, Fiat’s 8V all-aluminum engine and a lightweight aluminum bodywork . Priced at $5300, just 35 examples were built.

There was much speculation on who provided the bodies for the 208 Spiders and many vintage magazines claimed Vignale or Bertone, but it was infact Motto who created the aluminum bodies for Siata.

Road & Track did a report on the 208S and called It a ‘Siata Spyder V-8’. It by Ernie McAfee who was the west coast Siata distributor. They achieved a 0-60 run of 12.4 seconds and the ¼ mile in 17.8 seconds. They also recorded a curb weight of 1960 lbs. The first thing they noticed “was the silky smoothness of the relatively small V-8 engine.” Furthermore, “Even using 6000 rpm as a limit on each gearm the engine does not seem over-stressed in any way and appeared able to continue such treatment indefinitely.”