Triumph Italia
Reviewed by Unique Cars and Parts
Our Rating: 5
Introduction
In
1957 Triumph took Giovanni Michelotti of Turin under contract. He was a fertile stylist in the Italian manner, and his first design on a TR3 chassis appeared at the Geneva show the same year. Later he designed the bodies of the
Triumph Herald and
Triumph Spitfire.
The Italia prototype was a fixed-head coupe on the standard TR3a chassis, built by Vignale and shown on its coachbuilder's stand at the Turin Motor Show in November
1958. It looked advanced for its day, with gracefully elegant lines, and if you like that sort of thing it's hard to see how it could be done better.
A later version was actually put in production by Vignale as the Italia 2000. The cars were built at the rate of one a day through most of
1959, on rolling chassis bought from England. They weren't as pretty as the prototype, however some had the radiator tucked away neatly under its
Lotus-like nose, while the series cars had a conventional grille with jutting headlights on either side.
About 300 were made, mostly with left-hand drive.