[Motorace]

Originally Posted by henk4

The Italia (and IMX) were coupes designed on the chassis of the TVR Griffith.

With all due respect to henk4, please allow me to correct an error before it gets repeated…
The chassis of the Intermeccanica Italia was NOT in any way based on the chassis of the diminutive TVR Griffith.

The only connection between the TVR Griffith and the Griffith 600 (the prototype Italia), was the man - Jack Griffith. Jack was a successful NY Ford dealer who enjoyed importing lightweight TVR chassis, stuffing Ford 289 motors in them, and calling them Griffith 200's (& later 400's). From what several owners have told me, and from having ridden in one, I'm convinced they can embarass any car on the road. (GoTo Grifith 200/400, American muscle with british style. for more history on the TVR-bodied Griffith 200's and 400's).

NY dock strikes and financial troubles at TVR in England convinced Jack that he needed to find a different supplier if he was going to stay in business as a manufacturer, so he struck a deal with Frank Reisner's Intermeccanica after admiring the beautiful Apollo-Buick they were building for International Motor Cars in California.

Jack Griffith deserves the credit for getting the ball rolling on his "Griffith 600", the car that shortly became the Omega and eventually became the Intermeccanica Italia; but Griffith left the chassis design up to Frank Reisner/Intermeccanica.

If the Griffith 600/Italia chassis was based on anything, it was based on the experience Reisner gained with the chassis of the Apollo that Intermeccanica had previously built to Milt Brown's design. That one was a relatively simple design, and can be seen in SportsCar Graphic January 1963, page 71. The bare chassis of the Italia (which can be seen in Automobile-Quarterly Volume 9-3, page 13) is far more complex looking, so there was clearly an all-new chassis designed for the Griffith/(Italia).

See the UltimateCarPage.com Apollo thread for background on the Apollo’s design: Intermeccanica Apollo - Ultimatecarpage.com forums

Furthermore, since Milt Brown’s Apollo chassis used the front subframe (with suspension attached) and the rear axle from early 1960's Buicks, Reisner had no choice but to engineer the Griffith/(Italia) chassis for a new suspension system. John Crosthwaite, a suspension engineer with experience at Lotus, Cooper, and B.R.M, designed this. Crosthwaite incorporated parts from various European cars to design the Italia's suspension with rack & pinion steering, coil springs, and disc brakes at each corner. Intermeccanica even modified the drum-brake equipped Ford 9” rear axles to incorporate Girling’s 3-piston disc brakes – the same ones Shelby was putting on his Cobras.
These features were all well ahead of American muscle cars of the era, whose rear leaf spring suspension designs were unchanged since the horse-drawn wagon (with the exception of Corvette – who successfully laid out their leaf spring transversely in 1963).

The lusciously complex curves that form the Italia's steel bodywork were hand-formed by skilled craftsmen over a wooden body buck. These will be expensive to replace if new ones have to be made, but the chassis underneath is all made with square tubes and flat panels - not complex stampings! So, if you need to repair any rust or damage to the chassis or under-panels, any decent welder can do the job very simply – a nice feature if you have to restore an Italia!

Another interesting bit of chassis history is that Griffith initially contracted with Reisner for 2500 bodies over a three-year period. That meant Reisner had to plan for production of almost three per day – a very healthy number for any coachbuilder making hand-formed steel bodies! Reisner prepared by building several complex jigs – two to hold the various chassis pieces in place during welding, and another to hold the various body panels in place relative to each other and to the completed chassis.

Note that the body is welded to the chassis – forming a rigid structure that needed no further reinforcing when the coupe’s top was later removed for Scaglione’s convertible design. Reinforced jacking pads (underneath the front of each door) permit jacking the entire side of the car up from one point – and you can still open & close the doors on a convertible while the whole side of the body is resting on this one point – that’s how rigid the chassis is… Yet this strength does not carry a significant weight penalty – the Italia convertible weighs only 2500 pounds.

The net result is that the body will not shake & rattle over bumps, unlike many other low-volume vehicles. Griffith's unrealistically large contract turned out to be a blessing in disguise for it meant that Italias ended up with far superior build quality than their low-volume production numbers would otherwise have justified.

Given that Griffith’s operation collapsed after only taking delivery of ten cars, (and Wilder’s after only thirty-three), it’s a wonder that Reisner survived financially given the up-front investment he’d made in tooling – a testament to his efficiency and effectiveness.

Regarding the suspension design, I asked a friend (a highly-qualified racing & development driver for a European manufacturer) to take my Italia for an extended evaluation drive. He reported back that he was surprisingly pleased with it overall, and that he was most impressed with the lack of squeaks and rattles in the bodywork, (especially for a convertible!), and also that all bump-steer had been carefully designed out of the front suspension. Perhaps the highest testimonial is that he is now seeking an Italia to purchase!

Originally Posted by henk4

Scaglione designed a coupe named Omega, but that project somehow failed.

Technically, the Griffith 600 / Omega / Italia Coupe concept was sketched by Robert Cumberford and then refined into a buildable production design by Franco Scaglione.

Griffith ran out of money after building only ten coupes, sold as the “Griffith 600”.

Steve Wilder then saved the project, contracting with Holman & Moody to receive the bodies from Intermeccanica and install Ford powertrains. “OMEGA” was the name used for marketing the 30 coupes sold through Steve Wilder’s efforts, but these were essentially the same body design as the Cumberford/Scaglione Griffith 600’s.
The Omega project also failed to sell enough cars, though legend has it that Steve made his money back by selling the name “Omega” to GM (for Oldsmobile). As an employee of Holman & Moody, Cumberford was also part of this effort.

After selling only 30 cars, Wilder threw in the towel.
Note: 33 Omegas were built, but three had to be destroyed for crash testing.

Reisner was nothing if not efficient. He had another 142 bodies already built, waiting to ship, but no one to pay for them. So, he came to the US in December 1966 and negotiated: 1) with a dealer who could market his car nationwide in the USA, and 2) with Ford to ship Mustang engines, transmissions, rear axles, and Magnum 500 wheels to Italy, where he could complete the cars and fully road-test them before they were shipped to his US connection.

The changeover to Italian-completed cars was accomplished in 1967. Meanwhile, Franco Scaglione had designed a convertible version of the Italia, which Frank Reisner marketed briefly as the “TORINO” until Ford objected. They planned to use the name (in 1968), and Reisner didn’t want to cross his biggest supplier, so he re-named his car the “Intermeccanica Italia”. In designing the convertible, Scaglione dropped Cumberford's Griffith/Omega one-piece front bumper in favor of a more Italian two-piece design reminiscent of the Ferrari 275 GTB. The convertibles far outsold the coupes, and to this day the convertibles typically get higher prices.

Originally Posted by henk4

Production of the coupe continued until 1970, whereby the last models had a fiberglass body and were dubbed IMX. Production if both versions stopped in 1970 after the completion of about a 1000 vehicles.

With all due respect again, the above notes are possibly incorrect:

-None of the Italias ever had fiberglass bodies (to the best of my knowledge).

-I've read that Italia production continued until at least 1972, more likely 1973, with sales in Europe dominating it’s final year; but I'm uncertain if the author wasn't also including the Indra (which was introduced at Geneva in the spring of 1971) in these years.

-There was only one “IMX” concept car (InterMeccanica eXperimental?).
It was built in 1970 and it was a very aggressive-looking coupe attributed entirely as Franco Scaglione’s design.
Intermeccanica Italia IMX - Ultimatecarpage.com forums

-A brochure for the Italia convertible was printed, probably in 1967, referring to these cars as the “Italia GFX”.
(Is it possible the Dutch author confused 'GFX' with 'IMX'?).

-Total production numbers (including the 10 Griffith 600’s, the 33 Omegas, and all the Intermeccanica Coupes and Convertibles are unknown. I’ve seen figures quoted from the low 400’s to the mid-700’s. When the Reisner’s moved their operations to the USA, I believe that a lot of their business records and other property were lost during the transition, so we’ll probably never know the actual figure; but, I’ve never previously seen any published figures approaching 1,000. On the other hand, Reisner was capable of producing 1 car/day at his peak. If he maintained that rate that from 1967 to 1972 (even assuming only 200 working days/year), your 1,000 total production figure is not out of the realm of possibility, but perhaps a maximum of 700 is more realistic.

See later post for photo descriptions

Anyone reading this who knows of any factual errors, please contact me through my profile page so I can edit this posting.