Spider Elegance

It did not begin with a Savio but with a Boano: in 1957 Mario Felice Boano brought out the «500 Spiaggia», a small open beach car on the Fiat 500 for the run from the boat to the house. Gianni Agnelli owned one, another went to Aristotle Onassis – the photograph of Onassis at the wheel with Winston Churchill beside him has become famous. When Boano’s works were absorbed into Fiat’s styling centre, Savio took the car over in 1958 and renamed it the «Spider Elegance». The first version dates from that same year; in 1959 the lighting was brought into line with the new highway code, and in 1960 the Elegance stood on the Fiat 500 D.

What remained are the four wicker seats, the wooden rubbing strip all round and the twisted cord in place of doors. To these are added a wooden steering wheel with three drilled alloy spokes, a rear lid with long cooling louvres and round tail lamps in chrome bezels.

At the 1965 Turin show an Elegance appeared on the cover of «Auto Italiana». The car is still widely described as the only one built. That is not so: according to Alessandro Sannia the Elegance was built in series, first by Boano and then by Savio – only the first two, those of Gianni Agnelli and Aristotle Onassis, became famous. 1965 cannot be the year of manufacture, however, as production ended in 1962; a car shown or registered in 1965 may have been built earlier and left standing.

Not to be confused with the Spider, a two-seat sports body, nor with the Albarella 500: the Elegance has a smooth, rounded nose with two large round headlamps and a cord in place of doors, the Albarella doors with a deep cutaway.