Isotta Fraschini Tipo 8C Monterosa History

After over a decade of building aero engines, Isotta Fraschini made a last attempt at passenger-car production with the Tipo 8C Monterosa, officially presented at the Paris Motor Show in October 1947. The car was a genuinely progressive design: its 3.4-litre overhead-valve V8 engine — water-cooled, with hemispherical combustion chambers — was mounted in the rear, driving through a four-speed transaxle controlled by a steering-column shifter, and giving a quoted top speed of 170 km/h (106 mph).

Bodies were to have been supplied by three coachbuilders — a four-door saloon by Zagato, a two-door saloon by Touring, and convertibles by Boneschi — but the car never reached genuine production. Between three and six complete examples are believed to have been built; the programme was a commercial failure, and the original Isotta Fraschini company entered liquidation in 1949.

The Monterosa is remembered today as the melancholy finale of a great marque: technically bold, beautifully bodied, and fatally mistimed in a post-war Italy with neither the customers nor the infrastructure to support ultra-luxury cars. Surviving examples are museum pieces of the highest order.