Intermeccanica Apollo GT – Cult Classic, not Best Seller

The Intermeccanica Apollo GT is what happens when America tries to make a Ferrari. Don’t get us wrong, we’re not belittling the Yanks, and imitation is the sincerest form of flattery after all, but the question is: is it any good? Is it akin to those early British rock bands like the Shadows who took influence from ’50s American rock and roll to become successful in their own right across the Atlantic, or was it more a case of those tragically terrible homemade cake fails that were doing the rounds a few years back? And if you haven’t seen them then you’re in for a treat.

Crap confectionery aside though, the Intermeccanica Apollo GT – a car born from a young man’s desire to create a sporty grand tourer to rival the best that Maserati, Ferrari and Aston Martin could produce – certainly looked the part, what with its hand-built Italian bodywork, so it was off to a good start at least. Unfortunately though it couldn’t go the distance, as we’ll find out.

But let’s start at the beginning, way back in the early 1950s, when aspiring American whipper-snapper Milt Brown bought his first car, a Chevy. He was instantly hooked. It’s a passion we can all relate to but not many of us pursue it as a career, with even fewer still going on to build our very own cars. But that’s exactly what brown did. The American dream was still very much attainable at this point in time.

While still at school studying engineering, the young Californian would build his very own Formula Junior race car before selling it in order to fund a trip around Europe, a trip that would have resounding consequences for Brown. As good as he was at building cars, his maths left a lot to be desired and he promptly ran out of cash on the wrong side of the pond, but being the enterprising fellow he is, Brown would quickly get a job working for British racing car manufacturer Connaught.

Call it fate, destiny or just pure dumb luck, whilst working for Connaught at the Monaco Grand Prix in ’61, Brown would meet Frank Reisner, who you may remember from our Intermeccanica Murena article all the way back in 2021. Reisner’s Turin-based Intermeccanica company had been around since ’59 and so was pretty well established at this point, and after Brown explained to Reisner (rather persuasively it would appear) that he wanted to build his very own luxury GT, Reisner agreed. They shook hands and the Apollo project was off and running.

It’s all well and good having an idea but it’s another thing entirely to bring it to fruition. The pair made it happen though, and Intermeccanica would hand-build the Apollo GT steel bodies using a prototype penned by Brown’s friend Ron Plescia and revised by Franco Scaglione (formerly of Bertone) in Italy, before shipping them State-side where Brown would sort the mechanicals at his own company, International Motor Cars in Oakland.

But what ‘mechanicals’ are we talking about here? Well, it’s probably not too difficult to guess what engine Brown – an American engineer living in California in the ’60s – would choose to wedge under Reisner’s sleek Italian bonnet. Yep, you guessed it, a V8 – specifically Buick’s brand new all-aluminium 3.5-litre, packing around 200bhp of pure, all-American freedom. And yes, that is the same motor that would become the revered Rover V8. It was small, light, powerful and affordable. Perfect then for Brown’s Apollo GT.

Coil spring suspension and a four-speed manual gearbox completed the package and the first Intermeccanica Apollo GT was shown to the public at the Los Angeles Motor Show in ’63. Reactions were universally positive and the car was seen as a viable alternative to more established marques, prompting the boys to introduce a Scaglione-designed convertible, called the Apollo Spider, along with a more powerful 4.9-litre V8 . Brown had done it then. The Apollo was a huge success and fame and fortune were guaranteed, right? Well, not exactly.

Remember those budget mishaps we mentioned earlier? As it turns out Brown would make the same mistake with the Apollo as he did with his Euro trip, only this time the results would be far less fortuitous. The Intermeccanica Apollo, as good as it was, was always a hair’s breadth away from disaster, financially speaking. Brown simply hadn’t built enough profit into the car and as such the company went bust after less than 40 cars were sold.

Rather than any design failings, in the case of the Apollo it was simply due to mismanaged finances. Milt Brown has stated that he was depressed for a decade afterwards because he had a car that people wanted, exclaiming: “I never made the same mistakes again: I always had businesses that were properly funded”, and we can fully understand his frustrations.

The Intermeccanica Apollo GT remains a beautiful, well-balanced and really rather spritely grand tourer that’s far more exclusive, and arguably more usable, than almost anything similar from Maranello and if you fancy picking one of these rare gems up for yourself then check out this beautiful example available right here on Car & Classic.

Now, the keen-eyed among you will no doubt be questioning how a 1972 model can exist when Brown’s International Motor Cars, the company actually building the Apollo GT, folded eight years earlier. Well, post-Brown production would carry over into the ’70s with numerous parties getting involved, continuing to offer the Apollo and bringing final production numbers to just 88 in total, with the vast majority of those being coupés.

Not a best seller then, but definitely a cult classic. It’s an absolute stunner, you can fix it with a hammer (thanks to those GM underpinnings) and yes, we do want one.