Vehicle overview

This 1927 Tipo 8A was delivered from the factory to coachbuilder Cesare Sala in Milan. One of Italy’s most prestigious and skilled coachbuilders, Sala was a popular choice for Isotta’s customers, together with fellow Milan concern Castagna. Sala had made its name in the pre-automobile era, supplying fine horse-drawn carriages to European royalty, and thus the transition to dignified luxury automobile bodies came naturally; as well as Isotta Fraschinis, their coachwork adorned many a Lancia, Alfa Romeo, and Ansaldo. While some coachbuilders were prone to wild excess in this period, Sala’s hallmark was tasteful restraint, their bodies offering the finest in luxury travel while being thoroughly immune from any accusation of vulgarity.

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The body on this car is what Sala called ‘guida interna’ – internal drive. This refers to the fact that in-period, it was not uncommon for large formal cars to have a snug enclosed rear compartment for the lucky passengers, while the chauffeur would be out in the open, perhaps protected by a removable roof panel but certainly without such luxury as windows, and often sitting bolt-upright due to the encroachment of the all-important passenger compartment into the driving area. Internal drive limousines such as this Isotta represented something of a shift not just in the style of coachwork, but also socially; the open-drive cars had represented the most obvious link to the internal combustion automobile’s horse-drawn-carriage heritage. Now, sharing the same exquisite interior, passengers were no longer so aloof from the chauffeur, and indeed, sometimes the owners would even take the wheel themselves - something that would have been unthinkable in an open-drive car.

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