Stile50 (Steel-Ay Cheen-Kwahn-Ta)

A modern re-creation of the classic Italian dream.

- Matt Zuchowski

It was in the 1960's that the Italian sports car industry reached its pinnacle and established the mystique it enjoys today. After the rapid development of the racing scene in the 20's and 30's, Italian engineers, designers, and pilots came back from the World War with greater technical knowledge and an insatiable hunger for the thrill of serious track action. Not long after life returned to normal, a new Italian renaissance birthed legendary names like Ferrari, Maserati, and Alfa Romeo.

Those few were not the only names that established the Italian racing scene that was so rich and advanced at the time. Dozens of small racing car manufacturers tried their luck, and often competed with a surprising level of success. Names like Bandini, Moretti, or Stanguellini may sound exotic today, but in fact they were the brands that moved the game forward for the Italian racing community in their home country and in the U.S. These small Italian jewel-like race cars didn’t necessarily look like they had much in common with each other, but in fact, they were all nearly identical underneath; they shared the same underpinnings stacked together on similar shoestring budgets. Historians now refer to these rare cars as “etceterini,” the label coming from the etc. phrase, as if they’re putting them in an addendum to the standard history of Italian sports cars.

After the war, spirits were high but resources were low. The only available components a constructor had, no matter whether he wanted to build a truck or a single-seat race car, were some small pre-war Fiat engines and chassis. Auto Avio Costruzioni 815, Enzo Ferrari’s first car, was in fact based on a cheap Fiat and had a straight-8 engine made of two Fiat engines put end to end. Abarth started the very same way.