Descrizione
Intermeccanica Apollo 5000GT V8 Autom, 7/ 67, 65000km,
271HP, accidentfree, designed by Scaglione.
Only 50x 5000cc cars made,
In 1962, a young engineer from California named Milt Brown had the idea of building a world-class sports car with a svelte Italian body, powered by reliable and affordable American V8 power. He even dreamed that with Buick engines, he could sell his car through GM dealers. Brown found backing for his idea and was shopping around for a coachbuilder to help realize his dream, when he met Frank Reisner of Carrozzeria Intermeccanica of Turin. A design was drawn up by Ron Plescia, and a deal was struck for Reisner’s fledgling coachbuilding firm to construct the chassis and body and ship it finished and trimmed to Oakland, California for drivetrain installation. Before production began, the styling was reworked by Reisner’s friend, the famed designer Franco Scaglione, lending serious credibility to the project. Early cars were powered by the advanced, light alloy 3. 5 liter Buick V8. Later cars got more grunt in the form of the Skylark’s 300 cubic inch (4. 9 liter) V8.
Financial woes struck soon, and a deal was made for a Texas company to build the cars under the name Vetta Ventura until IMC could get its finances in order, as well as to keep Intermeccanica in operation. All told, just 90 examples were built between 1960 and 1965. Thankfully, Frank Reisner persevered to carry on with his next project, the Italia in 1966. But the Apollo lives on as one of the few Italian-American hybrids that could take on the likes of Ferrari, Aston Martin and Jaguar in terms of performance and style. An Apollo 3500 GT even famously took on the likes of Herbie the Love Bug, as the Thorndyke Special. The appeal of the Apollo has always been that it is a genuine, coachbuilt Italian GT car with sublime looks and the performance to back it up. It has even been declared an “American Milestone Car”, a designation used to recognize important post-war designs in the same spirit as the CCCA Full Classic list.
price 96000 Eur
