Thursday, July 14, 2022

Lamborghini Flying Star II


Carrozzeria Touring was a Milan-based body building company started in the 1920s. They soon made a name for themselves building bodies for Alfa Romeo and Isotta Fraschini and through the 1930s, they acquired most of the Italian motor industry as clients. For a 1931 show they had produced a sleek and stylish body on a Alfa Romeo chassis which they named Flying Star, this body was adapted to different chassis. The publicity gained from this car resulted in them building bodies for Fiat, Lancia and even the first cars for a new company named Ferrari, for entry in the 1940 Mille Miglia. During the fifties, they built cars for Alfa, Aston Martin, Maserati and even for Hudson in the US.
  By the 1960s the era of the custom body builder was coming to an end, the company was only building a few prototypes for Aston Martin and had a production contract for the bodies for the 400 GT Lamborghini. They decided to build another Flying Star style show car. Introduced at the 1966 Turin show the car was a new concept- basically a two seater estate car (sounds better than a station wagon or hatchback) with storage compartment accessed from a rear hatch. The car was metallic grey with magnesium wheels and it was favorably received by show goers. But it was too late for the company, only one was built. 
The car was made road legal by the factory and sold to someone in France, it has passed through several hands over the years and is now apparently on display in Poland.



 

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