A Unique Piece of Automotive History
If the car you see in the images here confounds you, that’s because it’s a seriously special one-off creation that’s currently available at Girardo & Co. Vignale had the opportunity to take the Lancia Aurelia chassis B52-1097 and craft some elegant Spider coachwork. The car is exquisitely detailed and it was displayed in 1955 at the Brussels Motor Show in Belgium at the Lancia stand.
The Lancia Aurelia was a was a rolling chassis. The company then made the chassis available to various coachbuilders. Carrozzeria Alfredo Vignale was one of the best coachbuilders out there in the early 1950s, having worked on Ferrari, Alfa Romeo, Cisitalia, Maserati, and Fiat cars and well as Lancia. The company made the special Spyder you see here from a chassis that left the Lancia factory in 1953.
The car remained in Belgium for decades. In 2007, the car was restored by Carrozzeria Quality Cars in Vigonza, Italy. While restoring the car the restoration company realized what a special machine it was and decided to do everything it could to restore the vehicle to its original luster. This included matching restoration materials to the original paint and leather to make it as it was when it was first shown at the Brussels Motor Show in 1955.
Those efforts paid off and the car won second place at the 2016 Concorso d’Elegance Villa d’Este in ‘The Golden Era of Sports Car Design’ class. The car was also awarded its FIVA Identity Card and its ASI (Automotoclub Storico Italiano) Certificate of Identity. Pair that with the Lancia Classiche Certificate of Origin and the more than 1,600 images of its restoration, and you have an amazing piece of automotive history. You can learn more about this car at Girardo & Co.’s website.
