This is the ultra-rare "Furberia" Imperial. Ghia coachworks received an
order from a troupe of Hungarian circus midgets in Buda-Pest after they
learned they had pooled to purchase a winning ticket in the Italian lottery
in September 1956. Fed up with sharing a train with smelly critters, some
of which had more than two legs, but unwilling to give up the lifestyle
they loved, they decided they would spend the rest of their working lives
traveling in the highest style from town to town with the circus.
Ghia coachworks spent hundreds of man-hours fabricating and assembling the
parts necessary to reduce the 129-inch convertible chassis and 2-door coupe
body to Liliputian proportions and removing all evidence of luxury. The
392-cubic-inch V-8 engine was removed and replaced by a 500-cc two-stroke
motorcycle engine because high-octane gasoline required by the hemi's 10:1
compression ratio was not available anywhere behind the Iron Curtain. The
new "Imperialists" had specified replacement Fiat badges in their order so
as to avoid restrictions against importing Capitalist ostentation to their
homeland. But before the magnificent car could be delivered, the troupe
was arrested on charges of being sympathetic to the Nagy government and
never heard from again.
KGB agents, one of whom is pictured in the ebay photo, produced
sufficiently official looking documentation to convince Ghia to release the
coach, which was long rumored to have been stored in an underground missile
silo near Boris Yeltsin's Black Sea dacha.
Many people don't know, but this was the car that cemented the
Chrysler/Ghia deal. After Virgil Exner saw what the Italian craftsmen had
done, he reportedly said, "If they can do this, they can do anything!"
Hee hee hee,
David
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