Carrozzeria Gransport

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Carrozzeria Gransport
legal form Corporation
founding 1957
resolution 1966
Seat Modena , Italy
Branch Body shop

The Carrozzeria Gransport (alternative spelling: Carrozzeria GranSport ) was an Italian manufacturer of automobile bodies in Modena . During its ten-year existence, the company primarily produced superstructures for racing vehicles, as well as individual prototypes for road sports cars. At times there was a close connection to Stanguellini .

Company history

Until the 1970s, it was not customary for racing car manufacturers such as Ferrari or Maserati to manufacture the bodies of their vehicles themselves. Usually they only built the engines, sometimes also the frames. The bodies, on the other hand, were built by suppliers. In the triangle formed by the cities of Modena, Bologna and Argenta , which is also called Terra dei Motori , there were several dozen independent bodywork companies that supplied the car manufacturers with bodies in the post-war period. Many of them were very small companies that were able to react flexibly and spontaneously to customer requests, but reached their limits early on with larger orders. In some cases, they maintained business relationships with one another or, if necessary, worked as subcontractors for one another. Carrozzeria Gransport was one of them.

The company was founded in 1957 by Fernando Baccarini and Pietro Vaccari. Baccarini had worked for Carrozzeria Fantuzzi in the early 1950s and then worked for Fiandri & Malagoli . Both were temporarily suppliers for Ferrari and Maserati.

The racing car manufacturer Stanguellini was one of the first customers of Carrozzeria Gransport. After Gransport had built a single Spyder, the company made almost all of the bodies for Stanguellini's Formula Junior car. One of the last works for Stanguellini was the bodywork of the Colibrì , a record-breaking vehicle fitted with a Moto Guzzi motorcycle engine. At the beginning of the 1960s, Gransport also turned to building road sports cars. In 1964, the body of the 308V / GT sports car was created for Automobili Serenissima based on a design by Francesco Salomone, which remained a one-off. In addition, some of the first De Tomaso Vallelunga bodies are said to have been built at Gransport. Alejandro De Tomaso brokered the last major order from Carrozzeria Gransport : in 1964 the company built the bodies for five of the six Shelby Cobra Daytona . Gransport was awarded the contract because the American body manufacturer originally envisaged by Carroll Shelby could not ensure compliance with the tight deadlines.

The high level of craftsmanship of Carrozzeria Gransport is exemplified by the Daytona Coupé with chassis number CSX2299: The subframe for the body, which was still modified under Shelby in California, was mistakenly faulty and the belt line in front of the windshield was about 25 millimeters too high. As a result, the prepared wooden blocks no longer fit for shaping the light metal sheets. Nevertheless, Gransport succeeded in building the body largely freehand (without a wooden mold) with a raised belt line and a correspondingly flatter, rounded roof. Despite the complications, the vehicle was still ready in time for the 1964 Le Mans 24-hour race . This was all the more important as the second vehicle reported by Shelby had an accident on a van while arriving.

In 1967 the company ceased operations. The Vaccari family still has a body shop in Modena.

gallery

  • Stanguellini Formula Junior (from 1958)

  • Stanguellini Colibrì (1963)

  • De Tomaso Vallelunga (1963)

  • Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe (1964)

  • Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupé in racing at the Nürburgring in 1965

literature

Alessandro Sannia: Enciclopedia dei carrozzieri italiani , Società Editrice Il Cammello, Torino, 2017, ISBN 978-8896796412

Web links

Commons : Carrozzeria Gransport  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wolfgang Blaube : Count, pay! Presentation of the brand Serenissima and driving report of the Jet Competizione. In: Oldtimer Market. No. 9, September 2008, ISSN 0939-9704, p. 10 ff.
  2. ↑ Alessandro Sannia: Enciclopedia dei carrozzieri italiani , Società Editrice Il Cammello, Torino, 2017, ISBN 978-8896796412 , p. 284.
  3. ^ Wallace Wyss: Sidebar: The Italian American Cobra. www.velocetoday.com, accessed September 7, 2011 .
  4. ^ Martyn L. Schorr: Ford Total Performance: Ford's Legendary High-Performance Street and Race Cars , Motor Books, 2015, ISBN 9780760348581 , p. 98; there inappropriately referred to as Carrozzeria Grand Sport.
  5. ↑ Rinsey Mills: AC Cobra - A tribute to the English-American legend . Heel, Königswinter 2006, ISBN 978-3-89880-645-9 , pp. 69 and 88 .
  6. ↑ Carrozzeria Vaccari Modena website (accessed on February 7, 2019).