1962 TRIUMPH ITALIA 2000 WITH ONLY 7K ORIGINAL MILES! RARE FLORIDA CAR

By most accounts, nly 329 of these hand-crafted bodies were ever built — known as the Triumph "Italia 2000 Coupé." Designed byGiovanni Michelottiand built byAlfredo Vignalein Turin, nder contract to Ruffino S.p.A. Industria Construzione Automobile of Naples — it was thought that these cars would appeal to people willing to spend more for the dependability and ease of obtaining stock mechanical parts of a Triumph, ut who wanted a better looking car than the standard Triumph -"Italian bodywork at its best, ritish tradition in sports car engineering at its finest."

At the time, alvatore Ruffino was the owner of CESAC, he Italian company that distributed Standard-Triumph in Italy. He approached Standard-Triumph to supply chassis and mechanical components to build 1,000 cars. Ruffino approached a number of carrozzeria, ncluding Zagato. He had not found a design that was to his liking and was later introduced to the young, iovanni Michelotti. It was this introduction that was to lead to the Triumph Italia. The resulting two door coupé, ow referred to as the "slope-nosed prototype," was well received at the 1958 Turin Motor Show — "Italian artistry and British craftsmanship have come together and produced this new, uperlative Italia 2000 Coupé."A second prototype was built with a revised nose and rear roof line. The change was necessary after road tests with the first prototype highlighted some handling issues. This second prototype was much closer to the final "look" of the Italia. The first prototype was converted into another car, uite possibly the second prototype. This second car still survives. The 1959 Turin show featured another early car (probably Italia #3) on the Triumph stand and, y all accounts, he motoring press was impressed. The first two "show" cars were Italia #1 which was delivered to Standard-Triumph for testing and Italia #2 which was reputedly Ruffino's personal car. These early show cars had many small differences from the later "production" run. The first 13 cars were assembled completely by Vignale. These cars have a number of different badges but not all appeared on all of these "show" cars. On the nose was a large "V" (for Vignale) badge, "by G. Michelotti" badge on the bonnet, mall "Vignale" scripts and a cloisonné Vignale-badge on the front wings, Triumph Italia" on the rear wings with a set of Vignale crossed-flags (these are very similar to the ones on the S-T Vignale Vanguard, hey are nautical flags for "V" and "S," the "S" presumably for Standard-Triumph), large Vignale script on the boot handle and a "Triumph 2000" script on the boot. After the first 13, uffino took over production on an assembly line he leased from Vignale for the remainder of production.

This is one of the rarest triumph and rarely comes up for sale, his car is number 253 of 329 with all the optionsavailable from the production line.

Options included overdrive (this was indicated on most cars by an extra "O" at the end of the chassis number), eather interior (rare), nd Borrani wire wheels (very rare, eriod photos show these only on the second prototype).

This car is all original with only 7,026 original miles, he interior is just like new, he body and paint is nice and shine in need of a cleaning and detailing, he car been sitting in storage for thepass 12 years.

This car will need the carburetors rebuild, resh gasoline and a new battery before be driven again.

2 Owners since new.

This is a rare find, nd will be sold.