FIRST GOODS-ONLY TURIN SHOW
Page 44
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From John F. Moon, Turin, Tuesday.
TOMORROW, Signor Segni, the Italian 1 president, is due to declare the 45th Italian Motor Show officially open, and this is the first of the post-war series not to feature buses and coaches. Not that interest is lacking as a result, however: most of the major Italian vehicle makers are displaying new designs—in some cases with much more powerful engines than hitherto—whilst there is at least one completely new chassis manufacturer here, this being SAME.
-The International flavour is a little stronger than usual among the commercial-vehicle exhibits, and Britain is represented by Austin Gipsy,. Bedford, LandRover and Thames models. The Italian market holds scope for British makers, however, and only this afternoon I was told by the managing director of Innocenti, which company builds and markets B.M.C. cars in Italy, that it is considering building a 1-ton commercial vehicle embodying B.M.C. 1100 car engine and components.
The SAME designs appear very interesting, although so far today it has been virtually impossible to get very near_ to them as a result of the activities of various SAME stand personnel, who act
as if they were guarding the crown jewels! However, it is known that the SAME Toro 3-tonner has a twin-cylinder 2.49-litre 40-b.h.p. four-stroke diesel engine, and that the Elefante 24-ton-gross tractor has a V-6 version of the same basic air-cooled engine, this giving 140 b.h.p. from its 7-47 litres. The engine of this model is behind the cab, above frame level, whilst both axles are driven.
Fiat shows a new 6-ton-payload model with I10-b.h.p. engine, whilst Lancia has a new 1.5-ton design with Flavia car units (and front-wheel-drive, consequently), plus a 228-b.h.p. diesel engine with Holset turbocharger, this output being 41 b.h.p. above that of the normally aspirated unit. . O.M. has designed a " backbone" type of chassis around its Tigrotto model, the object of which is to give a low loading line for side-loading bottle-carrying bodies, whilst for sheer capacity the Cometto 300-ton trailer takes some beating. Rigid eight-wheelers are fairly numerous this year, most of these being fourth-axle conversions of existing six-wheelers, and novel trailers and semi-trailers are to be found _ in all corners of the Show.
A fully illustrated report will be published next week.