Cisitalia 202 Gran Sport. The beauty of rare encounters

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Purchasing classics there

Recently I found a model in scale 1 to 43. The cart was a nice addition to a selection of 202s and XNUMXs sculptures with sporty genes. The miniature car is one in the category that I wanted to bump into, in order to experience an extra sensation when discovering it. And that worked recently. I'm talking about the Cisitalia XNUMX Gran Sport, the ultimate Italian-made work of art.

The chance that you will encounter a Cisitalia 202 lifelike is not great. Then you should come across it during the Mille Miglia Storica. Or in a museum. Or during an exhibition at a major classic fair. I was lucky a few times. In Bremen, for example, during the Classic Motor Show 2015, there I saw the beauty up close. And a year later it was hit in the Museo Mille Miglia, under Brescia. Gazing can be beautiful, especially when the sight completely cuts you off from the rest of the world. A phenomenon that hardly occurs to me.

Few car designers have been given the opportunity to design a car that deserves the honor of being included in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. And the car's so rich history has few designs that put me in such a trance as the Cisitalia 202 Gran Sport. The longer I look at the D46 heritage of Dusio and Giacosa mined by Pinin Farina, the more enchanted I get by the lines. Nowhere a stroke too many, exact proportions, every millimeter was created by a miniscule finely sharpened drawing pencil. And every millimeter made the design perfect. Not only that, every stroke of the pen took the Gran Sport to the highest design echelons in history.

You talk about that in the late XNUMXs. And in that perspective is the interplay of aerodynamics, power and light that led to the separate body really sublime. The Cisitalia 202 was a wonderful trendsetter for sports cars that would later see the light of day. And the tubular chassis was not yet commonplace either. The bodywork and chassis could be combined with proven technology, because of Fiat. Take the motor, for example. The 1.089 cc power source came straight from the Balilla 1100 and got a modified head. In standard trim it was already good for 55 HP and a top speed of 160 kilometers per hour. It goes without saying that more power could just lead to speeds of 180 km / h and higher.

The 202 Gran Sport became a household name in its class, which also featured many Fiat 1100 variants and Stanguellini 1100 copies. At the same time, each Cisitalia 202 coach became the guardian of different specifications thanks to personal adjustments. The 202 was also a household name in the Mille Miglia, where the 202 often performed well in several guises. And so became the face of the post-war editions of the Italian 1000 miles race.

The Cisitalia 202 Gran Sport. That was Italy at its best. Of course, the country was big in terms of motorsport and sporty beauties. The circulation remained small, it is said that 172 copies were built. And making beautiful cars in small series: that was what made Italy great. And what Italians loved to do. Create enchanting designs in exclusivity, so that rarity and sportiness became even more exclusive. Stabilimenti Farina understood what that meant. Although the buyer also paid the absolute top price for the Cisitalia. This also meant that the number of copies built remained limited.

The Cisitalia 202 Gran Sport is the ultimate example of this. The longer you look at it, the more you realize that these times never return. And that the few moments that you do see one can be considered a miracle. Just like the Cisitalia 202 is also a design wonder. You are less likely to look up from a 250 GTO, an XK 120, a 356, a 911, a DB4, a Healey or a 300 SL. Not even if you and I are allowed to go to the beautiful classic fairs again. But the Cisitalia 202 is of such beauty that it even conjures up as a miniature sensation when you see it spontaneously.

You now understand why I did not order the scale model online. And was delighted when I saw the cart on the shelves. I bought the miniature Cisitalia. But after five minutes of looking at it with my mouth open. Because even a 202 Gran Sport in scale succeeds in letting me lose touch with the world for a moment.

 

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5 comments

  1. Haha, I read that piece about the Cisitalia 202, my own contribution, the last one is in it 2x.
    About the design and why this was so groundbreaking I found this:

  2. Yes, beautiful car. I saw one in Italy's Automobile Museum in Turin. Beautiful in simplicity. In search of tangible Abarth history I ended up in this car heaven.
    Based on the 202, a Spyder and aerodynamic Sport Saloons followed. At the time of the development of this beauty, Abarth was already working at Cisitalia. In '49 Dusio (Cisitalia's founder) left penniless for Argentina and Abarth started Abarth & Co.

  3. Gosh, discovered another model with the 0 in the middle. And Peugeot allowed all of that? At Ferrari (308) and Bristol (40x) it was all possible, but Porsche had to drop the “middle 0”.

  4. In search of tangible Abarth history, I went back to Turin two and a half years. I was not allowed to enter the sacred grounds of the Abarth factory, but from my hotel it turned out to be a three-block walk to the beautiful National Automobile Museum. There was also a “202”:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uELj3115Coo
    Simple beauty.
    Incidentally, the founder of Cisitalia, Piero Dusio, already employed Abarth and Hruska for the racing cars. In 1949, Abarth took over after Dusio took the amphitheater to Argentina.

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