The Silver Fox Catamaran Unexpectedly Reminded of Itself (19 photos + 1 video)

Powered by a liter engine, the car accelerated to 250 km/h, and this was in 1967!





At the Villa d'Este festival on the shores of Lake Como in Italy, the company of classic cars and fresh premieres like the BMW Speedtop and James Glickenhaus' SCG 007 was the racing Silver Fox, which looks more like a prop for a science fiction film than a real vehicle.

The Silver Fox was created in the second half of the 1960s by the Turin studio Officine Stampaggi Industriali (OSI) at the request of the Italian racer Piero Taruffi to participate in the 24 Hours of Le Mans race. OSI specialized in building one-off Alfa Romeos, Fords and Innocenti, and the order to create a track-ready twin-hull monocoque race car of a more than strange appearance did not raise any particular questions.

To evenly distribute the weight, the pilot sat in the right nacelle, while the left one housed a 4-cylinder, liquid-cooled, carbureted Renault Alpine engine with a working volume of 956 cc. The gap between them contained three spoilers to control air flow.

Following homologation requirements, the car received a small trunk and even a spare tire. It would be interesting to watch the process of changing a wheel somewhere on a public road and the reaction of passing drivers.

The rear wheel drive was carried out through a 4-speed manual gearbox. The maximum engine power of 80 hp was achieved at 6,500 rpm, which allowed the lightweight, 500-kilogram car to accelerate to a serious speed of 250 km/h.

Alas, but OSI went bankrupt before the order reached the race track, and the almost finished Silver Fox was taken by creditors. Piero Taruffi tried to buy the car, but by that time it had already been dismantled for spare parts. Fortunately, years later, the Silver Fox was restored and now stands in a museum, making rare trips to the public.





























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