1948 Ferrari 166 Coupés and Berlinettas

Many observers, me included, consider Italian car styling from the late 1940s through much of the 1950s to be a kind of design golden age.  Today's post presents some designs from early in that era.  All are based on the Ferrari 166 (Wikipedia entry here).

Details are in the captions below.

Gallery

1948 Ferrari 166 Inter Coupé by Stabilimenti Farina, Giovanni Michelotti designer
I wrote about this and other Stabilimenti Farina designs for Ferrari 166s here.  Lacking on this design is the Ferrari oval grille with egg-crate bars introduced by Carrozzeria Touring on the 166 Barchetta.

Ferraris had V-12 motors in those days, justifying a long hood.  The side view is pleasing, very classic postwar Italian styling.

1947 Cisitalia 202 Berlinetta by Pinin Farina
But the design strikes me as being highly derivative of the classic (honored in a 1951 exhibit at New York's Museum of Modern Art) Cisitalia 202, often cited as setting the tone for Italian design.  The basic Cisitalia design was by Giovanni Savonuzzi, productionized by Pinin Farina.  Cisitalias had small Fiat motors, so the car was small and the hood not as long as the Ferrari's.  Derivative items on the latter include the aft roof profile, the fender design, and the side window theme.  Stabiliment Farina also built some Cisitalias to the Pinin Farina design, so the firm might have been quite familiar with it when the Ferrari was styled.  The hood on the Ferrari is higher and shaped differently, so maybe that was much of Michelotti's contribution.

Unlike the Cisitalia, the Ferrari has a trunk lid.  The tail light/reflector ensemble is awkward.

1948 Ferrari 166 MM Panoramica by Zagato, Luigi Rapi designer - photos via carrozzieri-italiani.com
The lower body is in the spirit of Touring's Barchetta design, including a variation of the grille.

Where the design fails is the side windows that curve up onto the top of the roof.  Zagato built a number of cars with this unfortunate feature that I discussed here.

The car is something of a hatchback -- note the cutlines near the backlight window.  All things considered, the passenger compartment greenhouse is too tall relative to the lower, Barchetta-influenced lower body.

1948 Ferrari 166 Inter Berlinetta by Touring, Federico Formenti designer
Early postwar, Touring made many cars based on the Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 platform.  A common Touring feature there was sculpted character lines on both front and rear fenders.  That feature is seen here too.

The greenhouse's rear profile seems a little awkward, but that is because Barchettas often had back seats requiring passenger headroom, whereas Coupes did not.  That said, this car had only a bench in back that might be used as a seat briefly.

The backlight window is large for its time.  I think the design would be improved if it was a bit narrower and less high.