Welcome to the CarDomain Obscure Muscle Car Parking Lot, a regular feature which aims to expand the notion of what a muscle car is, and to see if something Italian can be classified as one. It’s time for something a little different, and in honor of the merger between Chrysler and Fiat, we are going to highlight the “Italianate Chryslers” of the past. Can these Designer Italian bodied beauties be classified as true Muscle? Let’s take a look at the svelte, yet powerful Dual Ghia, and it’s successor, the Ghia L6.4.
Continue reading after the jump!
The idea of having Italian craftsmen collaborate with Yankee engineers is really nothing new. Many of the American automakers sought out Italian design houses to produce stunning prototypes and produce them at far lower costs than they could have here in the states. While Nash utilized Pinninfarina to design their production vehicles, Chrysler commissioned Carrozzeria Ghia. The Dual-Ghia was a favorite car of entertainment personalities during the 1950s. A-list owners included popular celebrities such as Debbie Reynolds, Lucille Ball, and Frank Sinatra. Along with a few of the infamous Rat Pack, each owned a Dual-Ghia at one time or another. Peter Lawford even drove one on his television series The Thin Man. The Dual-Ghia was a custom-built sports car featuring a perfect combination of Italian styling and Chrysler engineering.
In the early ’50s, American auto shows were deluged with sporty coupe and roadster concept cars. The Corvette was the first of these to go into production in 1953, and GM also created the Oldsmobile F-88 roadster and the Olds Rocket V-8-powered Cutlass. Pontiac featured its Bonneville Special and Buick showed its Wildcat and Wildcat II. Chrysler was no exception, as it displayed a number of Virgil Exner-designed, Ghia-built show cars like this 1954 coupe–one of five that survive–built on the chassis of a Chrysler New Yorker. Most of these show cars were realistic interpretations of the automobile designer’s vision of a personal sporty car. The Ghia-Chrysler connection began in 1951 with Ghia’s execution of the K-310 show car designed by Virgil Exner. Chrysler continued to use Ghia’s craftsmen to create other show cars, including a series based on the Firearrow. These cars were so popular on the show circuit that Chrysler investigated the possibility of producing a Firearrow on a limited basis. However, Chrysler soon abandoned the idea and Detroit industrialist Gene Casaroll stepped in. Casaroll was the head of Auto Shippers Company and Dual Motors Corporation, an enterprise that built twin-engine vehicles for the military during the war.
Casaroll acquired the rights to the Firearrow. He instructed his chief engineer, Paul Farago, to make the necessary modifications to the design for the American market. Casarole renamed his new car The Firebomb, and in 1955, the first prototype Dual-Ghia was built. Production was scheduled to begin in 1956 and unfortunately ended in 1958. The Dual-Ghia concept used rugged, dependable, and well-proven Dodge engines and transmissions. The use of Chrysler-engineered underpinnings allowed the car to be repaired locally with standard Mopar parts. The Ghia facility in Turin, Italy, headed by Luigi Segre, was chosen to craft the elegant bodies. Once complete, the bodies were shipped to Detroit and mated to the chassis. The Dual-Ghia used a shortened Dodge passenger car chassis. Dodge also provided the Hemi engine and Powerflite transmission. This made for an impressive package, especially since the optional Dodge D-500 horsepower ratings were consistently higher than those of the Corvette. Distinctive and quite fast, it had a top speed of 120 mph according to a contemporary road test. Continue reading about the Dual Ghia at Automotive Traveler.
Like the earlier Dual-Ghia, the follow-up, the Ghia L6.4, was the brainchild of Eugene Casaroll and was largely based on the series of Chrysler fifties concept cars produced in conjunction with Ghia for which he acquired the production rights. Luxurious and extravagant, it had the longest production line in the world–from Detroit to Milan and back–as it utilized an American drivetrain and Italian coachwork. As the health of Casaroll, the Dual-Ghia’s originator, began to fail, he concentrated more and more on his shipping business, so Dual Motors Chief Engineer Paul Farago teamed up with Ghia to produce the second-generation Dual-Ghia.
The car continued to use a Chrysler V8 engine but the construction was almost entirely conducted in Italy, making this version more of an import than its predecessor. Farago designed a new Chrysler-based chassis with front torsion bars. Power came from a Chrysler 383-cubic-inch, 335-horsepower V8, now driving through Chrysler’s robust TorqueFlite three-speed automatic. Fewer off-the-shelf parts were used, and with the high-quality materials employed, the price skyrocketed to an astronomical $13,500. Unlike the first generation Dual-Ghia, the L6.4 was exclusively a coupe (technically it’s a Ghia L6.4, as only the prototype wore a Dual-Ghia badge). The new car was launched at the Paris auto show as the Dual-Ghia, but soon became the Ghia L6.4 (for its displacement). Unlike the Dual-Ghia, it led the styling parade for Chrysler rather than following it. Casaroll sold the rights to Ghia, but Dual-Motors continued to source Chrysler parts for Ghia and distribute the cars in the U.S.
The Ghia L6.4 was expensive. By 1963, the cost climbed to over $15,000–twice as costly as its predecessor–so its appeal was limited to the wealthy. It was faster but softer riding, with handling not as taut as that of the earlier cars; however, its svelte good looks made up for a lot, and everybody who was anybody wanted one. It had every imaginable amenity, including fitted luggage and luxurious styling, and the public response to the largely hand-built L6.4 was encouraging. Again, however, incredibly high overhead costs plagued the project, and Casaroll called it quits. Only 25 of the Ghia L6.4s were built before production ceased in 1963. Read more about the Ghia L6.4 at Automotive Traveler.
Once again, I have to ask, are these two very distinctive, Italian designed but Yankee Powered machines Obscure Muscle Cars? They had some of the most powerful V-8’s of their time, and they had better handling than anything coming out of Detroit, but is that enough? Please leave your comments, and as befoe, I look forward to hearing from each and every one of you.
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