The Isotta Fraschini Tipo 8A is a luxury car made by the Italian manufacturer

Isotta Fraschini Isotta Fraschini () was an Italian luxury car manufacturer, also producing trucks, as well as engines for marine and aviation use. Founded in Milan, Italy, in 1900 by Cesare Isotta and the brothers Vincenzo, Antonio, and Oreste Fraschini, in 19 ...

from 1924 until 1931. It was the successor to the Tipo 8 model, with a new 7.3 litre straight-eight engine to replace the 5.9 litre unit used in the previous model. This new engine could produce . This was the most powerful mass-produced straight-8 engine in the world at that time. The Tipo 8A was offered only with bare chassis and engine for the

coachbuilder A coachbuilder or body-maker is someone who manufactures bodies for passenger-carrying vehicles.Construction has always been a skilled trade requiring a relatively lightweight product with sufficient strength. The manufacture of necessarily ...

s. The Isotta Fraschini car company promised that every car could do . The car was very luxurious and it cost more than a Model J Duesenberg. Around one third of these cars were sold in the United States. The characteristic car body was made by Swiss manufacturer Carrosserie Worblaufen. File:1928 Isotta Fraschini Tipo 8A half page ad.jpg, 1928 Isotta Fraschini Tipo 8A half page ad File:1930 Isotta fraschini Motors Ad.jpg, 1930 Isotta Fraschini Tipo 8A ad

Drivetrain

The Tipo 8A's inline 8-cylinder engine displacement was up to 7.4-liters, with

overhead valve An overhead valve (OHV) engine, sometimes called a ''pushrod engine'', is a piston engine whose valves are located in the cylinder head above the combustion chamber. This contrasts with earlier flathead engines, where the valves were located be ...

s and cam — and like its predecessor, the Tipo 8, there was no external

intake manifold In automotive engineering, an inlet manifold or intake manifold (in American English) is the part of an engine that supplies the fuel/ air mixture to the cylinders. The word ''manifold'' comes from the Old English word ''manigfeald'' (from th ...

, the twin carburetors being attached directly to the block. Transmission was a three-speed manual. The 8ASS (Super Sprint) package was also an option.

On today's market

In 2012, a barn find of an unrestored 1931 Isotta-Fraschini Tipo 8A with

Lancefield Lancefield is a town in the Shire of Macedon Ranges local government area in Victoria, Australia north of the state capital, Melbourne and had a population of 2,743 at the 2021 census. History The area was used by the indigenous aborigin ...

Faux-

Cabriolet A convertible or cabriolet () is a passenger car that can be driven with or without a roof in place. The methods of retracting and storing the roof vary among eras and manufacturers. A convertible car's design allows an open-air driving exp ...

2-door coachwork was publicly offered for the first time since 1961 and fetched $186,500. In March 2013 a restored 1929 Isotta-Fraschini Tipo 8A with

Convertible A convertible or cabriolet () is a passenger car that can be driven with or without a roof in place. The methods of retracting and storing the roof vary among eras and manufacturers. A convertible car's design allows an open-air driving ex ...

Sedan coachwork by Floyd-Derham sold for $473,000.

In ''Sunset Boulevard''

A 1929

landaulet Landaulet may refer to: * Landaulet (carriage), horse-drawn carriage * Landaulet (car), automobile {{dab ...

limousine A limousine ( or ), or limo () for short, is a large, chauffeur-driven luxury vehicle with a partition between the driver compartment and the passenger compartment. A very long wheelbase luxury sedan (with more than four doors) driven by a pro ...

example of the car with "coupe de ville" bodywork by Castagna of Milan, is featured in the 1950 film ''

Sunset Boulevard Sunset Boulevard is a boulevard in the central and western part of Los Angeles, California, that stretches from the Pacific Coast Highway in Pacific Palisades east to Figueroa Street in Downtown Los Angeles. It is a major thoroughfare i ...

'' as the car of lead character Norma Desmond, a forgotten silent movie star who in the film says

...we have a car. Not one of those cheap things made of chromium and spit but Isotta Fraschini. Have you ever heard of Isotta Fraschini? All hand-made. It cost me twenty eight thousand dollars.

(Adjusted for inflation, and assuming she bought the car in 1929, $28,000 would be .)

William Holden William Holden (born William Franklin Beedle Jr.; April 17, 1918 – November 12, 1981) was an American actor, and one of the biggest box-office draws of the 1950s. Holden won the Academy Award for Best Actor for the film ''Stalag 17'' (1953) ...

as Joe Gillis, an unsuccessful

screenwriter A screenplay writer (also called screenwriter, scriptwriter, scribe or scenarist) is a writer who practices the craft of screenwriting, writing screenplays on which mass media, such as films, television programs and video games, are based. ...

said, telling the story, "The whole thing was upholstered in

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skin and had one of those car phones. All gold-plated." The "Sunset car" has been on display at Museo Nazionale dell'Automobile in Italy since 1972.

Gloria Swanson Gloria May Josephine Swanson (March 27, 1899April 4, 1983) was an American actress and producer. She first achieved fame acting in dozens of silent films in the 1920s and was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Actress, most f ...

's character Norma Desmond's initials are on the rear doors of the car. The car used in the film was the #1587 owned in 1980s by

Tom Monaghan Thomas Stephen Monaghan (born March 25, 1937) is an American entrepreneur who founded Domino's Pizza in 1960. He owned the Detroit Tigers from 1983 to 1992. Monaghan also owns the Domino's Farms Office Park, located in the Ann Arbor Charter Town ...

Notes

{{Isotta Fraschini Tipo 8A Cars introduced in 1924 1930s cars Luxury vehicles