Savio
Head office:
Moncalieri (TO)
Borgo San Pietro
(from 1959)
Plant:
Via Canova 35
Torino
(1930s–1959, earlier address)
CARROZZERIA SAVIO in Turin was founded in 1919. After difficult years in the 1950s, the arrival of the Fiat 500 offered the chance to gain a foothold in the small-car sector again. At the 1958 Turin motor show Savio showed a small two-seat spider based on the Fiat 500, styled by Pietro Frua; it remained a one-off.
Conversions of the Fiat 500 and 600 produced a number of handsome cars.
The company
The brothers Antonio and Giuseppe Savio began with a large order: bodies for Itala. Through the twenties and thirties Savio worked for almost every Italian marque – Fiat, Lancia, Alfa Romeo, Isotta Fraschini. During the war the firm built mainly ambulances; afterwards Giuseppe Savio carried on alone in the damaged works at Via Canova 35 in Turin.
When he died in 1954 the firm passed to his two daughters Italia and Teresa; the business was run by his son-in-law Alfredo Caracciolo. In 1959 Savio moved to Borgo San Pietro near Moncalieri, to Via Corrado Corradino 8. There, alongside buses, ambulances and commercial vehicles, came the small leisure cars the company is remembered for; they were sold throughout Italy through the Fiat dealer network. Savio still exists today, building bodywork for commercial vehicles and buses.
The cars
Four cars are described here: the two-seat Spider, which Savio showed at the 1958 Turin motor show; the four-seat beach car Spider Elegance; the work and leisure vehicle Jungla on Fiat 500 underpinnings; and the Albarella 500, an open car in the spirit of the Ghia Jolly.