Serenissima at Artcurial

You’ve clicked on the title of this article, so there are only two options: you are part of less than one percent of the world’s population, that knows about the brand Serenissima and its history or from the remaining 99 percent, which are here out of curiosity to learn more about it. In both cases, we would like to welcome you to a fascinating story that began in 1958. It is closely linked to the then only 20-year-old Italian Count Giovanni Volpi di Misurata, whose father once founded the world famous Venice Film Festival and became Minister of Finance in Italy under Benito Mussolini. From him Giovanni inherited billions of euros in todays currency, with which he founded his own racing team, the ‘Scuderia Serenissima’. Serenissima is a description for the ancient Republic of Venice and translats to ‘the most Serene’.

After he used cars from Abarth, Porsche and Maserati for him and other drivers and also financed the development of the Maserati Birdcage Tipo 63/64, he then joined Ferrari as a financier for the new 250 GTO. For this he asked for the first two copies of the GTO, which was promised to him personally by Enzo Ferrari. However, when he learned that Volpi also supported the ATS brand with money, which was founded by former Ferrari technicians, he forgot about his promise. As a new sports car brand managed by engineers not necessarilly covers its costs, the separation between Volpi and ATS was only a question of time. Instead, the young Count asked Giotto Bizzarrini for a remodeling of his Ferrari 250 GT, which received its still common nickname ‘Breadvan’ due to its rather unusual tail design. His racing team competed with this car against the Ferrari 250 GTO and lost the 24 Hours of Le Mans only due to an engine failure.

With the experiences of his racing team and his big fortune, Count Volpi founded his own car brand Automobili Serenissima in 1963 and used the Lion of San Marco for the logo. Together with chief engineer Alberto Massimino, he started to build new sports cars just 200 meters away from the home of Enzo Ferrari. In contrast to other Italian low-volume car manufacturers, they didn’t even shy away from developing an own engine. It was a V8 with three liters of displacement and their own manual five-speed transmission. The first prototype 308/V GT was built with the help of former Pininfarina designer Salomone, but after some disappointing test drives, a new bodywork was made. Renamed to ‘Jet Stradale’ this car was planned to race the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1965. In addition, the team changed the chassis number from 001 to 003. At the same time another open two-seater, the ‘Torpedo Stradale’ with chassis number 004, was built at Fantuzzi, an Italian coachbuilder that also produced some bodies for Ferrari. A Coupé with chassis number 002, that was planned for Le Mans, was never completed.

While the engine was enlarged to 3.5 liters, many competitors already started with 4 or even 5 liters. Count Volpi finally left out the race in Le Mans in 1965, but developed the car with chassis number 003 further into the ‘Jet Competizione’ for pre-qualifying of the Le Mans race in 1966. There the car was much faster than the Ferrari factory team with their 250 LM. That of course provided positive press and great interest in car and engine. Among others, a certain Bruce McLaren asked for the V8, as he was looking for a new drive in his Formula 1 car. He actually received the engine of the Jet Competizione and thus won the very first points for his team McLaren at Brands Hatch, while Count Volpi withdrew the Jet Competizione from the Le Mans race. Instead he sent the re-developed Torpedo Stradale, now only called ‘Spyder’ with chassis number 005. In addition, the new Coupé ‘Jungla’ was shown in the paddock with a body by Bernhard Quentin, who wasn’t a designer, but an artist. It was a concept car without drivetrain. Only years later, it received an Alfa-V8. At the end of the year 1966 not only the cooperation with McLaren ended, but also the contract with Massimino. A move to new premises in Formigine followed.

Together with Alf Francis, the former mechanic of Stirling Moss, and Harry Mundy, a British technician who happened to have designs for a three-valve V8 engine in his luggage, a new Formula 1 engine was developed for the Serenissima M1 AF. With this car the Scuderia Serenissima really entered the premier class of motorsport. Since 2008 this car can occassionally be seen at Historic F1 races. Under the supervision of Alejandro De Tomaso, the then owner of the design house Ghia, a green painted sports car was styled by Tom Tjaarda for Serenissima. It didn’t receive immediate blessing by Count Volpi, but became one of his personal cars after some minor revisions. Automobili Serenissima last showed the Strada GT in 1970, which later was developed into the white-painted Agena. Together with the Ghia GT and the Spyder, the Agena became part of the Volpi collection and remained unseen for more than 50 years until about a month ago.

Now something happens, that was considered to be unthinkable a few years ago. After Count Volpi celebrated his 80th birthday in 2018, he seems to have decided to finally sell his three Serenissima cars. This will now happen in an Artcurial auction during the Retromobile in Paris. The silver Spyder, the now red-orange Ghia GT and the white Agena are likely to cause a stir, although the brand is actually unknown. Visually, however, they fit quite well into the era between the early to late 1960s. All three vehicles need careful attention to the technical components, as they have apparently rarely been moved in the past five decades.

The Serenissima Spyder is the only car of the brand that competed in Le Mans – in a very memorable race. In 1966, 55 vehicles rolled to the starting line, of which 15 were Ford GT40s. In the end, only 15 cars crossed the finish line, with the Serenissima among the 40 retirements. After only five hours of racing, the gearbox broke. Artcurial expects a hammer price of between 1.3 and 1.8 million euros.

After the Serenissima Ghia GT debuted at the 1968 Turin Motor Show and was also shown at the Geneva Motor Show a year later, it probably got the repainting to the red-orange of today and was then shown at the New York Auto Show as well. While originally the 3.5-liter V8 from Massimino was mounted behind the passengers, this later changed to the Francis-V8, which is still installed in the car. At the Artcurial auction, the bids should reach a range between 400,000 and 600,000 euros.

So the Agena remains. Here the Massimino-V8 is still mounted in the rear and provides up to 370 hp with a rev limiter at 7,000 rpm. In the course of development, there were different front designs and initially a fixed rear wing, which was soon dropped. On various old photos, these evolutionary stages can be seen. Again, Artcurial assumes a hammer price of between 400,000 and 600,000 euros.

Images: Artcurial, Christian Martin, ACO, McKlein, Motorsport Images