TG’s guide to coachbuilders: Touring Superleggera

Carrozzeria Touring Superleggera, or just Touring to its fans. It kicked off, as so many great Italian coachbuilders did, way back in the black-and-white days. In Touring’s case, it was 1926, which is a little on the late side compared to, say, Ghia, which opened its doors a decade earlier. Not that we’re counting or anything.  

And, just like so many great Italian coachbuilders, Touring found itself on the ropes in the 1960s. But, rather than sell off and move on, Touring closed its doors, kept its trademark and bided its time. The modern iteration of Touring started up after four decades of inactivity and eight decades after its original inception, starting the ball rolling with an estate version of the Maserati Quattroporte. But you’ll probably remember the modern Disco Volante more. And who on this slowly dying earth could blame you?

Milaahn, dahling. Where else could possibly suit such a paragon of design? Or, y’know, be a few streets away from Alfa Romeo and Isotta Fraschini, where all the commissions were coming from when Touring was starting out?

Milan, for those who aren’t super up on their Italian geography, is about 130 miles from Modena, Sant’Agata Bolognese and Bologna. And it’s also just 90 miles from Turin. So that’s Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, Lancia and Fiat, all comfortably within a few hours’ drive of Touring’s factory. Which might go some way to explaining one reason why Touring’s resumé is chock-full of Italian exotica. The other is because, well. Not exactly churning out PT Cruisers, are they?

Well, it built Enzo Ferrari’s first-ever car, the Auto Avio Costruzioni 815, back when Alfa Romeo had barred him from using the Scuderia Ferrari name. And also the Ferrari 166MM, which put Ferrari firmly on the map. Later, when Enzo had a beef with Ferrucio Lamborghini, Touring designed and built the very first car to feature a bull on its badge, the 350 GT.

Touring’s resume is vast, and it includes the best names in the business – Ferrari, Alfa Romeo, Lancia, Maserati, Lamborghini, Aston Martin and... um, Jensen.

Well, to be pedantic, Touring designed the Jensen Interceptor, but didn’t build it. Can’t help but thinking Jensen’s fortunes would have improved if they’d just let Touring build it as well, because it has something of a knack for it.

See, Touring’s coachbuilding skills were, to put it bluntly, game-changing. Its superleggera technique, which used a thin tubular bodywork frame married to load-bearing body panels, was unique enough to be recognised with a patent in the 1930s. If that process sounds familiar, it’s the same semi-monocoque structure used in aircraft fuselages. It was supremely light, of course, but it also allowed incredible freedom in the shapes Touring’s craftsmen could form. Which, we’d have to admit, they absolutely revelled in, hand-beating aluminium into shapes that are beautiful beyond anything as prosaic as merely gobsmacking. Not that we’re fans or anything.

We’ve often seen scuttlebutt on the internet that Touring’s superlight construction method (that Superleggera in the name isn’t for decoration) was put to work building aeroplanes in the 1930s. Now, we know for sure that the superleggera technique was adapted from the semi-monocoque construction used in aeroplanes. And we can imagine just how devastatingly pretty a Touring Superleggera low wing single-seater would be.

But Touring doesn’t list any kind of aviation in its history. And aviation – especially early aviation – is the kind of thing that companies dream of leaning on in their marketing. Bentley harks back to its old BR1 engines powering Sopwith Camels. The entire luxury watch industry seems to be built on romantic notions of flight – or, in the case of the Omega Speedmaster, very, very high flight, far away from Earth. But the history that Touring harks back to? Lots and lots of pretty cars.

Also, how often do you get the chance to use scuttlebutt in an article? Just marvellous.

Not to weasel out with equivocation, but that’s really a matter of personal taste. We’d argue that Touring’s absolute finest work starts with an Alfa Romeo, but then this is the company that also designed the Aston Martin DB4, DB5 and DB6. As an aside, this means that the DB4 Zagato is a Zagato burnishing of a Carrozzeria Touring design, which is probably why it’s a car pretty enough to cause palpitations at best and priapism at worst. But we digress.

To narrow it right down to the creme de la creme (or should that be il meglio del meglio?) of Touring, it’s no great leap to suggest one of two seminal Alfas. There’s the Alfa Romeo 8C Touring Berlinetta, a streamline moderne masterpiece that looks like it’s straight out of a Tamara de Lempicka portrait. The other is the Disco Volante, an avant-garde, aerodynamic feat of otherworldly ideas and talents.

And, now that we’ve gushed more than Old Faithful, we’ll pick... the Disco Volante, for its incredible blend of forward-thinking ideas and unfettered individualism. Nothing before the Flying Saucer looked anything like it. And, until the modern remake (by a reformed Touring), nothing has since.

Nope. This is Touring, friendo, not Big Kev’s backyard panelbeating. Touring is basically unimpeachable in our eyes. Seriously.

OK, fine, there is one that doesn’t hit the same highs we’re used to – the Tornante concept. And it’s far from ugly. But it’s not quite as beautiful as you’d expect from Touring.

And that’s for a very good reason – the Tornante is based on a Gumpert Apollo. For those of you who don’t immediately recall the Gumpollo and subsequently consider the Tornante to be the greatest victory ever snatched from the jaws of defeat, quickly look up a photo of the original article and tell us we’re wrong.

Ever heard of the Maserati 5000 GT? No huge stress if you haven’t; quite a few years have rolled on past since it was on the scene, and more than a few ultra-luxe, mega-buck coupes have come and gone in its wake.

But the 5000 GT was properly rarefied air, the preserve of European industrialists, bona fide rock stars, world leaders and racetrack owners. Just 34 were made, 31 of which were built by competing coachbuilders – Allemano, Frua, Pininfarina, Ghia, Bertone and Michelotti – and just three were built by Touring. But Touring built the first, at the behest of Maserati, for a very influential and moneyed client: the Shah of Iran. Yup, the King of Persia personally asked Maserati to build him an exclusive (in every sense of the word) high-performance luxury coupe, and Maserati went to Touring to develop its superleggera bodywork. That’s probably why Touring called their creation the Scia di Persia. Yep, naming a bespoke, ultra-exclusive car after the king who commissioned it. It’s just one of those things we see every day in our neighbourhood, too.

Decades later, Touring would hark back to the original with a modern version, based on the Maserati GranTurismo. What else, right?

According to Touring, it’s gone back to its roots – custom-built exotica, bespoke projects and so on. We’re going to assume that entails ‘if you have to ask’ pricing as well. If you recall the modern Disco Volante (not a hard task, given it’s one of the most unique and gorgeous shapes of the 21st century), it’s worth remembering that it took 10,000 hours of supremely skilled craftsmen’s time. Yup. Now you have an idea on price.

But hey, there has to be some kind of upside to living in the second gilded age, right? Well, you’re looking at it.