Aruanda

The Aruanda is not an Italian design but a Brazilian one. The architecture student Ari Antônio da Rocha from São Paulo drew it in the early 1960s as an answer to the traffic of his home city; the design won the Prêmio Lúcio Meira at the São Paulo show, and Carrozzeria Fissore invited the student to Savigliano to turn it into a car. The basis was a shortened chassis of the Fiat 500 Giardiniera.

The result is a one-box city car without a bonnet: a large, steeply raked windscreen with the headlamps behind it under plastic, plus a roof and side windows that slide back on rails – you can get out even in the tightest parking space. In November 1965 the yellow car stood at the Turin show on a floor in the wave pattern of Copacabana and was regarded by the Italian trade press as the most original contribution of the show. It never reached production. The prototype still exists; it was restored in São Paulo.

A model car of the Aruanda. The scale is not known.