Page 18 - Nash-Healey A Grand Alliance by John Nikas

wings and vertical grilles, resulting in an intoxicating amalgam of modern and traditional design elements.
During the war, Corso Trapani built munitions in support of the war effort from ambulances and trucks to mundane items such as food tins, but the works suffered significant damage in the waning months of the conflict and entered a different environment than had existed when hostilities began five years earlier. With the emergence of monocoque construction, the personal coachbuilder’s prominence waned as celebrated names like Barker, Chapron, Delage, Delahaye, Figoni, Freestone and Webb, Hooper, Hotchkiss, James Young, Saoutchik and Vanden Plas would lose their independence or vanish from the scene in the coming years. Banned from participation, along with the other Italian carrozzerias, in the 1946 Paris Motor Show, the first held since before the war, Pinin Farina parked an Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 Sport Speziale
328
(ABOVE) Although not as venerated as the variants from Carrozzeria Touring, Pinin Farina’s Alfa Romeo 8C 2900B Spider Aerodinamica won class honors at the 1939 Turin Concours d’Elegance. Built for Count Giuseppe Salvi del Pero, Mario Revelli di Beaumont penned the attractive design, which bears passing similarities to BMW’s earlier 328 Bügelfalte. (Pininfarina SpA)
(LEFT) Battista ‘Pinin’ Farina and his son Sergio pictured at Corso Trapani in 1950. (Pininfarina SpA)
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© DALTON WATSON FINE BOOKS © DALTON WATSON FINE BOOKS DALTON WATSON FINE BOOKS TON WATSON FINE B