At the 1960 Turin Motor Show FIAT showed off a new Coupé based on the soon to be manufactured FIAT 2300 saloon chassis and running gear and with a body styled by Sergio Sartorelli at Ghia, who with hind site produced a 4 seat vehicle not unlike the contemporary Sergio Pininfarina styled Ferrari 250 GT/E.
The 2300 Coupé was offered with either a 105hp twin carburetor straight six or the S version, as seen in these photo’s taken at Simply Italian, Beaulieu National Motor Museum a couple of years ago, with 136 hp.
Since Ghia did not have the capacity to build the Coupé bodies the job was contracted out to Officine Stampaggi Industriali known as OSI which was founded in 1960 as a coachbuilding company based in Turin by former Ghia president Luigi Segre and Arrigo Olivetti.
Luxury fittings including power windows pushed the price of a 2300S Coupé up to nearly double the cost of an E-Type Jaguar so it is hardly surprising that only 220 of the 7,194 2300S Coupés built between 1961 and 1967 were Right Hand Drive examples imported into the UK.
This particular car was dry stored from 1971 to 2000 with just over 37,000 miles on the clock, it was subsequently recommissioned with a minimum of work required to pass it’s Ministry Of Transport (MOT) test, required to make it roadworthy.
The owner of this 1964 car, which appears in these photographs with it’s original paint, chrome and interior, and his son own six 2300S Coupe’s in various states of repair between them.
The motor on this vehicle has been Abarth tuned to produce 150 hp which is good for pushing this car up to a maximum 118 mph, a contemporary report in Autocar noted that the valve tappets “sound like 100 grannies knitting”.
Thanks for joining me on this “100 Grannies Knitting” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psychoontyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be looking at an open wheeler raced by an American called Irish. Don’t forget to come back now !
