Fina Sport Convertible

The Fina Sport Convertible by Vignale: This was Perry Fina’s tag line when he announced his new Fina Sport in 1956, the culmination of years of knowledge of engineering, design and their clientele. Born in New York in the late nineteenth century, Perry arrived on the world at the right time for someone of his instincts. He got to see the nascent automobile industry and through his teens and twenties was quickly absorbed by it. Fina learnt with apprenticeships at FIAT and Isotta Fraschini, before returning home to practice those skills. By the 1930s he had set up business, with his son Joe in Manhattan on 54th Street, and immediately gained a reputation for ingenuity and ‘breathing on’ cars to make them go better through a variety of techniques. Using the contacts he had established in Europe he was able to obtain a license to import and sell Allard cars, and naturally those that he touched had a habit of going rather better than others, today one of these cars can be seen in the Simeone Foundation in Philadelphia. He was known for creating specialized mechanical accessories, patenting his own muffler system for example. One client was the noted driver and author Karl Ludvigsen, who’s MG TC was fitted with a Fina muffler, with which at the turn of a key it would run straight-through. He and Joe, were also known for campaigning their 1948 Nardi-Danese, which had originally been Alfa powered and used on the Mille Miglia and Targa Florio, but they reconfigured with Cadillac power and campaigned in at North Eastern venues such as Watkins Glen. Along the way, he clearly harbored the desire to place his own name on the front of an automobile and this dream became a reality in 1956 with the appropriately titled Fina Sport. Perry drew on the resources and contacts he had to create the wild, individual and sporting automobile evidenced on these pages. When asked, he would state that his motivation as being that “Many of our foreign car customers with expensive Ferraris, Mercedes and other high quality cars would consult with us on the safety of a long trip; always fearing a break-down in some forsaken place a long way from home where service and parts would be impossible to obtain. It was this that started my son and I on a venture of building an American sports car with foreign influence and handling characteristics. Having had considerable experience in racing, we constructed a chassis with excellent handling qualities, along with all American components, including Cadillac or Chrysler engines.” The first Fina Sport was built as a coupe, its power came from a Cadillac motor reworked by the Finas to give 300bhp. For its design, he could proudly proclaim, “We made arrangements with the Vignale Company of Torino Italy, for our coachwork and they do such an excellent job for us that our Fina Sport, with its elegant interior appointments and all leather work, is the most beautiful sports family car in America.” It debuted at the 1954 World Motor Sports Show at Madison Square Garden in New York. The Finas confidence in its potential was immediately rewarded with a Grand Prix award in the Custom Sports Car class. The follow up to this was a convertible version, which two years later, when ready it was shown in Philadelphia at the Autorama, where it was lauded with the Concours d’Elegance prize. It is not entirely clear why the cars never made it into a more full blown production sequence, there was certainly promotion and a marketing push, but as far as anyone is aware just three automobiles were produced, a coupe and two convertibles. The price tag of $14,000 is often cited as the reason.