A poor little orphan, all alone and so very blue. Makes your heart melt, doesn’t it? The story of the ASA 1000 GT is kind of tragic. Its father, Enzo Ferrari, refused to recognize it when it was born, even though it was given a superb body by Bertone (again penned by Giugiaro). Its little 1-litre engine was a gem, but just far too small to justify its price. As a result, the ASA experiment was a beautiful failure.
Those of you who have been on this site for a while might have already read this tear-jerker, as I wrote it up as part of my European Deadly Sins series a while back. But like several of the cars I discussed in that series, the ASA 1000 GT was a car I had never seen in real life. And given how few were made (i.e. somewhere between 50 and 90 units), I figured that I might never get to catch one. The Tokyo open-air automotive treasure trove strikes again!
A few pointers to refresh our CCollective memory might be in order. The ASA acronym stands for Autocostruzioni Società per Azioni (Auto Construction Stock Company) – a thoroughly bland title for what could have been an exciting proposition: a genuine miniature Ferrari.
In the late ‘50s, in a bid to develop a cheap(ish) GT, Enzo Ferrari had been working on a small all-alloy OHC 4-cyl., basically a third of the Ferrari 250’s V12. Several iterations – 850cc, 973cc and 1032cc – of this small engine were tested in Enzo’s personal Pininfarina-bodied Fiat 1200 coupé, seen here with FIA president (and father-in-law to Gianni Agnelli) Prince Filippo Caracciolo di Castagneto towering over it.
The Ferrarina, as the automotive press nicknamed it, was never intended to wear a prancing horse badge. But what to do with it? Enzo put out feelers to BMC, but that went nowhere. In the interim, he tasked Bizzarrini to develop a tubular chassis for the little four and roped in Bertone to design a suitably elegant body. By 1961, the car was pretty much ready for prime time, but the question of who would sell it remained unanswered.
For a while there, it looked like Bertone themselves would have to bite the bullet and try to peddle the coupé as the Bertone Mille. Certainly, Enzo Ferrari thought this could be a solution to the problem, but Nuccio Bertone never gave in – perhaps he had figured that the project, while attractive in many ways, was fatally flawed and could adversely damage his carrozzeria’s image.
Finally, a solution was worked out with De Nora, a major chemical firm based in Milan, to create ASA so the Ferrarina could become a reality. At the Turin Motor Show in late 1962, the car was displayed under this new marque, with its finalized styling sans headlight covers. At the 1963 Geneva show, a glassfibre-bodied convertible version was added to the range.
It still took a while for actual production and sales to materialize, so the first cars were only titled in 1964.
In the end, the comparatively larger 1032cc 4-cyl. with two Webers, mated to a 4-speed manual with overdrive, was deemed most suitable for the ASA. It certainly had the goods: 97hp @ 7200rpm, capable of propelling the 780kg coupé to about 185kph (115mph), though some sources claim actual top speeds were quite a bit lower, in the 170kph range.
The ASA chassis was carefully developed to be a model of sportiness and balance, like a 7/8th scale Ferrari in many ways. And indeed, the ASA’s rear suspension was as basic as that of contemporary Modenese products. On the other hand, some other features, such as disc brakes on all wheels, were bang up to date.
One problem was that ASA did not actually produce the car as such: the engine was made by Ferrari in Modena, the body panels were made by Bertone, and the chassis, final assembly and finish were outsourced to Ellena in Turin and sales were handled by ASA from Milan.
This all drove up costs for what was already a fairly expensive machine. On the home market, the ASA 1000 GT retailed at 2.76 million lire (to which one could add over 250k lire for optional extras like metallic paint, radio or power windows). In 1966, a Lancia Fulvia Rallye coupé (1.3 litre 87hp) cost 1.63 million lire; an Alfa GT Junior coupé (1.3 litre, 89hp) cost even less than that.
Granted, the ASA’s degree of refinement and finish was a cut above anything Alfa or Lancia were doing, but was it twice as nice? Difficult to justify that. Luigi Chinetti imported a number of ASAs – it’s said he managed to sell 32 of them over in the US. At over US$6000 a pop, that proves what a terrific salesman he was more than anything else.
The ASA 1000 GT experiment petered out in 1967, when the company effectively quit marketing their cars. There were a couple of other projects on the drawing board and racing-related activities, but those were wound down by 1969 and ASA were dissolved.
Back in the mid-‘60s, there were a number of small sports cars on the market. Aside from the aforementioned Alfa and Lancia, one could count (among others) the Austin-Healey Sprite, the Panhard CD, the Toyota Sports 800, the Matra-Bonnet Jet, the Glas 1300 GT (which looks quite similar to the ASA) or a host of Fiat-derived Abarths. None of them had the ASA’s pedigree and sophistication (leaf-sprung live axle excepted), but they were also a lot more affordable while being able to perform pretty well.
Enzo Ferrari had aimed too low. His second attempt at a downmarket sports car came with the 2-litre Dino, and this time the Commendatore hit the bull’s eye. He also partnered up with Fiat on that occasion, instead of desperately trying to find someone, anyone to manufacture and sell a car he was unwilling to expressly acknowledge as his own, though everyone knew otherwise.
A very pretty blue-blooded (and coloured) little orphan, this ASA 1000 GT. If it were in need of a spot of foster care, I’d gladly open the doors of my fantasy garage. Until the first repair bill arrived, at least.
Related post:
Italian Deadly Sins (Peninsular Peccadilloes, Part 2) – ASA, A Tra-GT In Three Acts, by T87
Beautiful find and biography. Colours inside and out, are fantastic. For me, upkeep would simply not be worth it. Perhaps if more Italian carmakers had pursued aluminum construction, we’d have more surviving examples, of their automotive artistry.
WAIT A MINUTE! What’s that other car in the bottom picture?
Let’s see, do I buy two GTOs or one ASA?
Smurf Smurfster’s Ferrari ?
One detail I find fascinating is that the prototype had a little tommygun badge.
What a gorgeous little blue fastback car… Stunning styling…!!
I see this as a neo-Cisitalia 202, the big difference being almost 20 years apart, during which time economic means and expectations had changed significantly. This format was from a whole different era, but it certainly is a fine expression of it.
I first saw just the 1965 ASA 1000 GT and thought, Wow look at that really fast old film like Delta 3200.
Three different headlight treatments – with perspex covers, without perspex covers, and – in the catalogue – with the wings extended and the lights pulled forward. A lovely car that made no sense.