1962 fiat 1600s OSCA

the fiat 1600s ‘osca’ is the result of cooperation between three great names in car history. towards the end of the 50’s the maserati brothers with their osca (officine spezializzata costruzioni automobili) company were looking to transfer their racing expertise into production cars. racing alone did not generate enough income. in 1957 ernesto maserati started to speak to dante giacosa, fiat’s head of development. he put forward an idea to build a lightweight 4-cylinder engine, an idea that appealed to giacosa. fiat at that time, stuck with slow 1100 and 1200cc engines, decided to go ahead with osca’s engines. pinin farina were allowed to design the bodywork and build too. initially they used a 1500cc osca power plant with a 75 hp output, by october ‘62 upgraded to a 1600cc developing for early ‘60’s an admirable 90 hp. the 1600s is pricey and the production numbers remain low with overall about 814 1600s osca’s built. by uh