Any car design that obtains the honour of being displayed
at the New York Musuem of Modern Art is surely the penultimate
in collectable cars.
For the time, the Cisitalia could obtain incredibly high
end speeds from a relatively small capacity engine (a
donor Fiat 1100 engine producing 50bhp).
This was mostly
due to the wonderful aerodynamics of the car. Variants
of the design were made by Vignale, Frua, Stabilmenti
Farina and Pinninfarina.
A short lived marque in automotive history, Cisitalia
was facing bankruptcy in 1949 after plans to develop a
Porsche-designed grand prix car.
Piere Dusio, the founder
of the company, migrated to Argentina and it was only
the creditors able to keep the company afloat until its
ultimate demise in
1965.